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

by David Turell , Saturday, January 02, 2021, 15:24 (1209 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: The emergence of immaterial properties as consciousness and the state of living requires a special input from God. A 'living essence' is not material, but requires the material with which to create 'living' and thinking.

dhw: What is this “living essence”? Humans have succeeded in creating artificial intelligence, in which intelligence “emerges” from materials. Why do you think your God is incapable of doing the same: designing biological “machinery” in the form of cells combined into a brain which produces intelligence, i.e. which, in your own words, creates consciousness as “an emerging product of the living brain”?

A dead brain is the same material as a live brain but only a live brain thinks. How do you explain the difference?

dhw: You have lost sight of the subject. Is consciousness the product of biochemical interactions between the cells of the brain, as you have maintained (= materialism), or is it part of a separate entity called the soul, as you have maintained (= dualism)?

DAVID: An extra spark is needed for life or consciousness to appear from matter. Matter is always a an inert basis and there always needs an extra input for the immaterial to appear. Remember I believe we live within God's consciousness.

dhw: Of course an extra spark is needed. That does not mean your God is incapable of designing the machine I have described above. I don’t know what you are trying to say with your last sentence. If God is universal intelligence, why does that mean he has to create a separate entity called the soul in order to give humans and animals intelligence? Why can’t he design a brain of which intelligence is an “emerging product” – i.e. what you describe so vividly as “the result of all the biological interactions of all cells in concert”?

Have you forgotten NDE's. That is what forces the concept of soul from the studies reported, no Bible story needed.

dhw: The compromise leaves open the source of the intelligent cell and the question of an afterlife (NDEs), but it removes the dichotomy between materialism and dualism in the same way as we removed the argument against free will: the cells are unique to us, and what we call the soul (the sum of all the immaterial attributes that give us our individual identities) emerges from the combined intelligences and experiences undergone by the different cell communities that make up our material selves. Theistic version: instead of giving us a soul, your God gave us the means to create our own soul.

DAVID: I remember all of this, and accept none of it with God in charge, instructing cells how to react.

dhw: Exit free will. Enter your “humanized” control freak of a God. And your comment does not explain your opposition to my compromise: i.e. please tell us why you think your God is incapable of inventing a living biological machine which produces intelligence in the “emergent” manner you have described (= theistic materialism), but instead has to create two separate entities (= theistic dualism).

It is where the science facts lead me. They lead me to recognize the automaticity of cells and reject your cell committees. NDE's requires a two part soul. and finally I know God is nothing like a human. but you do.