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

by David Turell , Monday, December 28, 2020, 13:39 (1209 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: This is the point where I question your fixed repeated statement in bold. Tell me how the soul uses the brain to create thought. What is the exact mechanism? I've told you my view. The soul must use the brain networks as its formative tool.

dhw: Nobody knows the “exact mechanism” that gives rise to consciousness and thought! You admit this later on: “We all recognize we do not know how an immaterial consciousness drives a material brain but it does.” Your view merely restates that the soul uses the brain, and yet again you omit to tell us what the soul uses the brain for!

To enter the brain circuits to create thought. I don't know how I do it, but I use my brain to cerate thought.

dhw: More muddy waters. Yes, the dualist’s soul “employs the circuits to create the thought” or uses the brain, as I have described. What is the “terminal material source of thought”? In plain language: the beginning of the dualistic process is information supplied by the non-thinking brain, the soul then translates the information into meaningful thought, and the end is the soul instructing the brain to give material expression to its thoughts. What is your objection?

The bold involves activating the brain by creating thought with it.

DAVID: Remember I am my soul. My brain does nothing unless I use it to think. A brain cannot think by itself.

dhw: Yes, in dualism you are your soul, and your soul uses the brain as bolded above and repeated ad nauseam. The dualist’s brain can’t think for itself, because that is the function of the soul. And that is why it is absurd for a dualist to make the two bolded statements above.

Again you HAVE A THINKING SOUL OFF TO THE SIDE TELLING THE BRAIN WHAT TO THINK AS IF NOT ATTACHED TO THE BRAIN WHILE CREATING THOUGHT.

DAVID: […] A living unconscious brain is not able to allow thought to be formed. A conscious soul must be active for thought to appear and as that soul enters the brain networks and forms thought using them.

DHW: A materialist would say an unconscious brain cannot think. Revive the unconscious brain, and it can think. The reviving medication/operation/weaning/sobering up works on the brain.

Of course, when awake, the brain can be made to think by the soul .

DAVID: Nothing could be clearer. We all recognize we do not know how an immaterial consciousness drives a material brain but it does. Only I can form my thoughts using my immaterial consciousness to drive my material brain. Only dualism applies. My immaterial consciousness is my soul. It uses my living brain to think and after death it can form immaterial thought on its own.

dhw: Nobody knows the source of consciousness and hence of thought. The open question is whether “I” consist of mind/soul and body/brain, or just body and brain. The dualist’s soul uses the brain, and part of the materialist’s brain uses other parts of the brain. The diseased/cured brain clearly favours materialism, as above, and as epitomized by your bolded statements concerning the diseased brain’s incorrect analytic thought and inability to form a correct judgement. However, psychic experiences such as NDEs, support the theory that there is a soul which CAN think independently of the brain. Hence my own neutrality on the subject.

The brain is and can be only a material tool. I drive my brain to make thought.