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

by dhw, Sunday, January 03, 2021, 11:19 (1420 days ago) @ David Turell

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

Nobody on this planet can explain the difference. But even if we accept the existence of an unknown designer, how does that exclude the possibility that just like humans creating a material machine to produce artificial intelligence, your God created a biological machine to do produce "natural" intelligence, i.e. the cell/cell communities, from which both life and consciousness emerge as “the result of all the biological interactions of all cells in concert”, as you have described the process?

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”?

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

In the summary of my theory (see below), I specifically pointed out that “the compromise leaves open the source of the intelligent cell and the question of an afterlife (NDEs).” You also know perfectly well that psychic experiences, including NDEs, are an essential element of my agnosticism. However, since you ask, the compromise that I offered elsewhere was related to the fact that theoretically one could witness all events that have ever happened on Earth if one were to look at our planet from billions and billions of miles away with a mighty powerful telescope. The image never dies. Theoretically one might extend this to the possibility that what emerges from the brain – the immaterial products – might also live on. (This is on the assumption that there is no simpler explanation for NDEs.) In other words, the soul would be what you call “an emergent product of the brain”. If this sounds far-fetched, it is no more far-fetched than the idea that there is an immaterial “separate entity” already planted in our brain. If your God can design the latter, he can certainly design the former, as summarized below. But as always, I must stress that I am only looking for possible explanations. I am not stating a belief.

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).

DAVID: 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.

The “science facts” can’t explain life or consciousness, and it is absurd to claim that science leads to the rejection of the intelligent cell theory which even you recognize as 50% possible. Nor do scientific facts tell us there is a two part-organism consisting of a material self and a separate immaterial self planted there by an unknown designer. Nor do scientific facts tell us (despite your claim to “know” it) that the unknown designer is nothing like a human – although he probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours – but is a control freak who has just one purpose in mind and who controls and directly designs millions of life forms that have no connection with his purpose. The only part of your theory which I would agree is based on science is the claim that the complexities of life are so immense that design is a logical conclusion. This is why, in all our discussions, and in all my own alternative explanations of evolution and of life and consciousness, I allow for a designer. It is only when we go back to “first cause” that I list the other options.