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

by dhw, Monday, January 04, 2021, 09:15 (1200 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?

dhw: 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: Why design an independent machine when it is easy to do the job yourself? Your every intent in this vein is to reduce God's image and value.

There is no attempt to reduce God’s image and value. Do tell us more about your non-humanized image of your God, and please explain why a control freak is of greater value than an inventor who gives free rein to his invention. And why is it “easier” and more “valuable” to keep stepping in to perform operation after operation on whales’ legs and hominids’ brains and pelvises (plus giving millions of courses on nest-building and camouflage and every natural wonder you can think of) than to create a single mechanism which will enable organisms to do their own designing?

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

dhw: 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.

DAVID: And I state belief based on the evidence. I don't see the above thought experiment as substantive.

What "thought experiment"? If we accept NDEs as evidence of a soul that lives on after death, why is it more "substantive" to suggest God popping a blob of his own immaterial self into every organism rather than inventing a material mechanism which will produce an immaterial self? As you say yourself,"consciousness is an emergent product of the living brain". And consciousness is pretty important for your concept of the soul, isn't it?

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.

dhw: […] 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.

DAVID: I fully understand your neutral position. And my point in this discussion is everything must come from materials. But that is only a beginning to the process to finally create life and consciousness. That requires a designer's input. There are no probable odds to support chance production.

I am not defending chance. My point is that if everything comes from materials, it is perfectly logical for your God to have created materials from which intelligence emerges. That would be a theistic compromise between dualism and materialism. Your bias against God-given cellular intelligence has nothing whatsoever to do with science leading you to “recognize” the automaticity of cells, to advocate a two-part soul (or a two-part self), or to your astonishing claim that you “know” God is nothing like a human, even though you agree that he probably has thought patterns, emotions and logic similar to ours and, if I remember rightly, you even believe that our consciousness is part of his consciousness.