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

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 30, 2020, 19:11 (1424 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Wednesday, December 30, 2020, 19:17

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

dhw: The same thing: the soul uses the brain to create its thoughts! How, if not as bolded above?

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:Your two statements were that the soul RECEIVES incorrect analytic thought from the brain, and the psychopath’s brain is unable to form a correct judgement. You continue to ignore them.

No!!! The soul is forced by a sick brain to create incorrect thought. The soul is trapped into using a bad tool of thought creation.

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 […]

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

dhw: Agreed. The dualist’s brain is NOT “made to think”. The thinking soul uses the brain as described above.

Yes.

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,

DAVID: 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: This is a complete volte face. If consciousness is an emergent product of the brain, which in turn is an emergent product of all the biochemical interactions of all the cells, you have a material basis for consciousness and thought. No one can explain consciousness, through a soul or as an emergent product of the brain, but you now say that ”of course” it is the latter. Pure materialism!

No, no, no! An emergent property is our garbage way of describing what we don't understand. A conscious brain is worthless unless there is living self/soul to drive it. Pure dualism. The material brain is only a tool. There has to be a material part and an immaterial part. Pure material, as in a brain does nothing unless alive, and that is an emergent event..

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

DAVID: 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.

dhw: Yes, it poses a problem for someone who believes that “of course consciousness is an emergent product of the brain” and “of all the biochemical interactions of all cells in concert”. That is why, just like me, you are torn between the materialism you have just espoused and the dualism of NDEs which (please note) I described above as evidence for a “separate entity” – your very own words earlier in this post. Welcome to my fence.

I'm not on the fence with you if you read my approach above. A pile of material proteins is simply a pile of material proteins. It requires the emergence of life and of consciousness, immaterial events we cannot explain. We know what is living, and we know that carefully designed functions and interconnections with biochemicals somehow creates living organisms. Thus the original basis is material. It has to be. What happens next is magical and immaterial. Why do life and consciousness appear? We have no answer at the material level itself. There is no way around the obvious dualism and the need for magic. That is where God is required.