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

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 30, 2020, 02:41 (1425 days ago) @ dhw

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

dhw: A materialist would agree with that. The problem is that we do not know what constitutes “I”. You say mind/soul and body/brain. A materialist says body/brain. See below for more on this and on the soul “entering” the brain circuits.

The 'I' is the immaterial me. For me it is my living soul. That immaterial whatever in my immaterial consciousness must employ my material brain circuits for any thought

dhw: 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?

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

dhw: What does that mean, if it doesn’t mean the soul using the information provided by the brain, thinking about it, and using the brain to giving thought its material expression?

The thought must be created using the material brain under vteh control of an immaterial soul, as a living self.

dhw: […] 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. [dhw: Now bolded below]

DAVID: 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.

Above, you talk of the soul “entering” the brain circuits. It’s you, then, who separate soul and brain!

I view them as separate entities!!! I am a dualist. I drive my brain to produce my thoughts.

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

dhw: So once again, instead of the soul doing the thinking (e.g. analysing and decision-making), we have the soul making the brain do the thinking (e.g. passing on incorrect analytic thought, or forming judgements). Whereas a week ago: “The soul is the analyzer, the brain its tool.”

Wild analysis of my theory. My soul thinks only by using my brain as its tool for thought.

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

dhw: Nobody – dualist or materialist – can possibly disagree that I use my brain when I think. The basic question to be answered is: what is “I”? Is it soul/mind plus brain/body (dualist) or brain/body alone (materialism)? Neither dualist nor materialist knows how immaterial consciousness - and hence the ability to think - comes to exist. However, diseased brains suggest that it is a product of the brain,

Of course consciousness is an emergent product of the living brain. But the emergence of a living brain is the result of all the biochemical interactions of all cells in concert. We can't even explain why emergent life exists!! Simply put all the proteins together and what do you have, a pile of proteins. And no materialist can explain the emergent properties, any of them we are discussing.

dhw: whereas NDEs suggest that it is a product of a separate entity (source unknown) that resides within the brain until the body dies.

Yes, doesn't that pose a problem for pure materialists? Which is why I am a double dualist, once in life and again in life and after death I see the soul in two forms.