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

by dhw, Thursday, December 24, 2020, 10:09 (1430 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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Not nebulous. Isn't your brain part of your body? You use it to think, by activating brain circuits…

And still you gloss over the different functions of the dualist’s soul and brain! Of course the thinking soul activates the brain by using information provided by the brain and by getting it to give material expression to its thoughts. What are you disagreeing with?

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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: No agreement.

You agreed four or five days that this was the case “in its limited form”, but never explained what you meant, and you bolded your own statement that “the soul is the analyzer, the brain its tool!” Why would these functions change if the brain is sick?

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.

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

DAVID: Form its thoughts by activating brain networks which it must use.

Activating brain networks to do what…to use for what?

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. [dhw’s bold]

dhw: 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: Your total confusion is apparent. Do you form thoughts by activating you brains networks?

Yes – to gather information and to give material expression to the thoughts I have then formulated about that information! The materialist does the same, but he argues that the thinking part of the brain activates other parts of the brain.

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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: I remind you of my dualism approach: In life the soul formulates thoughts by activating and using the brain networks. Only in death the soul becomes able to formulated thoughts without a brain present.

You don’t need to remind me, and there is no disagreement – this is what dualists believe. But you wrote above that “the material brain cannot think without the soul using it to form thought.” In dualism, the material brain does not think! Our discussion started because you and Egnor try to make out that seizures are evidence against materialism. But the psychopath and the epileptic and the drug addict and the drunkard all demonstrate how thought is affected by changes to the brain, and your example of the psychopath’s diseased brain being unable to form a correct judgement is a vivid illustration of materialism and determinism, not of dualism and free will.