https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lucid-dream-sleep-mind-neuroscience-brain

"Most people rarely if ever realize that they’re dreaming while it’s happening, what’s known as lucid dreaming. But some enthusiasts have cultivated techniques to become self-aware in their sleep and even wrest some control over their dream selves and settings. Mazurek, 24, says that he’s gotten better at molding his lucid dreams since that first whirlwind experience, sometimes taking them as opportunities to try flying or say hi to deceased family members.

"Other lucid dreamers have used their personal virtual realities to plumb their subconscious minds for insights or feast on junk food without real-world consequences. But now, scientists have a new job for lucid dreamers: to explore their dreamscapes and report out in real time.

***

“'The special thing about lucid dreaming is that you can get even closer to dream content and in a much more controlled and systematic fashion,” says Martin Dresler, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Donders Institute in Nijmegen, Netherlands.

"Lucid dreamers who can perform assigned tasks and communicate with researchers during a dream open up tantalizing opportunities to study an otherwise untouchable realm. They are like the astronauts of the dream world, serving as envoys to the mysterious inner spaces created by slumbering minds.

***

"But there are still a lot of problems to solve before lucid dreaming research can really take off. Chief among them is that very few dreamers can become lucid on demand in the lab. Those who can often struggle to do scientists’ bidding or communicate with the waking world. Pinpointing the best techniques to give more people more lucid dreams may assuage those issues. But even if it does, not all scientists agree on what lucid dreams can tell us about the far more common, nonlucid kind.

***

"In 2020, Carr and colleagues reported that they’d coaxed 14 of 28 nappers to become lucid in the lab — including three people who’d never before lucid dreamed — no drugs necessary. Before falling asleep, participants learned to associate a cue, such as a series of beeps, with self-awareness. Hearing the same sound again while sleeping reminded them to become lucid. Carr is particularly interested in finding out whether lucid dreaming can help people conquer nightmares, but researchers at Northwestern use the sensory cue strategy to get more lucid emissaries to carry out dream tasks for their experiments.

***

"Existing data do suggest that lucid dreamers may have access to parts of the brain that normal dreamers don’t. The lone case study comparing fMRIs of someone’s lucid and nonlucid REM sleep hints that brain areas linked with self-reflection and working memory are more active during lucidity. But those data come from just one person, and it’s not yet clear how such differences in brain activity would affect the outcomes of lucid dream experiments.

***

"Perhaps lucidity affects some aspects of the dream experience but not all of them, Baird adds. In terms of how dreams look, he says, “it would be very, very surprising if it was somehow completely different when you become lucid.”

"A more thorough inventory of the differences in brain activity between lucid and nonlucid dreams might help settle these questions. But even if lucid dreams don’t represent dreams in general, Nielsen still thinks they’re worth studying. “It is a type of consciousness that has intrigued and amused people for centuries,” he says. “It would be important for science to understand how and why humans have this extraordinary capacity for intentional world simulation.'”

comment: a striking phenomenon I have experienced. Difficult to study and offers no answers as to the question of how consciousness appears.

https://mindmatters.ai/2023/03/sean-carroll-how-could-an-immaterial-mind-affect-the-body/

In the trailer for the movie, Carroll asks, How in the world does the immaterial mind affect the physical body? Carroll’s denial of libertarian free will is based on this question, and of course, he believes that the immaterial mind does not exist and, if it did exist, could not affect the physical body. Thus, he believes that libertarian free will is nonsense.

***

"Aristotle noted that when we think carefully about natural causes we see that there are four distinct ways that causes can lead to effects in nature. We use a statue as an example of an effect whose causes we can study:

"Material cause is the matter (marble) that the statue is made of. The matter of what something is made is one of the causes of the thing – without the marble, the statue could not exist.

"Efficient cause is the agent that gives rise to the effect – in the case of the sculpture, the efficient cause is a sculptor.

"Formal cause is the design principle that underlies the effect – in the case of the sculpture, the formal cause is the idea in the mind of the sculptor of what the sculpture will look like. The formal cause is quite real and is indispensable to an understanding of causation – after all if the form of the sculpture did not exist in the mind of the sculptor as he was working, there would be no sculpture.

"Final cause is the ultimate goal, purpose, or final state of the causal chain. The final cause for the sculpture might be the sculptor’s desire to express himself artistically or it might be the sculptor’s desire to be paid for his work.

***

"Francis Bacon in the 17th century proposed that Aristotelian formal and final causes were irrelevant to a scientific understanding of nature, and since Bacon’s time, formal and final causes have been relegated to obscurity. But Aristotle was right – material and efficient causes alone are inadequate to understand nature because there are patterns and purposes built into nature that we can’t deny.

"So, Carroll’s implicit assertion that the immaterial mind could not affect the physical body is predicated on his belief that the only kinds of causes that exist in the physical world are material and efficient causes. He is wrong about that. Ironically, Carroll’s own scientific discipline – quantum mechanics – is a prime example of the importance of formal causes in nature. The scientific description of quantum processes is entirely mathematical, which is a description of formal causes. Matter and individuation disappear at the quantum level. What remains are the mathematical descriptions of quantum particles and dynamics. Contrary to Carroll’s implicit insistence that only material and efficient causes act in nature, quantum mechanics shows that formal (immaterial) causes are fundamental to nature.

"Thus a mental (formal) state can cause a physical state in a way that is currently understood in physics. A particularly striking example of the importance of formal causes in science is the phenomenon of chirality. Chirality is a property of mirror image molecules in which the molecules contain exactly the same number and kinds of atoms connected in exactly the same kind of way except that one is a mirror image of the other. In other words, the matter comprising chiral molecules is exactly the same although the form of the molecules can be radically different. For example, all biological amino acids that make up proteins are L enantiomers (one mirror image). Amino acids that are identical materially but are R enantiomers (mirror images) play no role in protein manufacture. The difference between L and R enantiomers can be a matter of great medical importance and even life and death – Darvon is an analgesic but its enantiomer Novrad is an anti-cough agent. Penicillamine is used in the treatment of arthritis, but its enantiomer is very toxic.

"Formal causation is ubiquitous in biology and Carroll’s argument that we cannot have libertarian free will because the immaterial (formal) mind cannot affect matter is philosophically vacuous. Libertarian free will in this paradigm is an example of the action of formal and final cause on brain matter – the intellect (formal cause) provides an understanding of the choices and the will (final cause) provides a decision on how to act. Contra Carroll, there is a 2000-year tradition of understanding immaterial formal and final causation in nature that provides a substantial metaphysical and scientific basis for the observation that libertarian free will is real."

Comment: Egnor is a thomist as I am. Look at another example of immaterial thought. You have a terribly frightening thought and your heart races. His chirality example is right on. Handedness gives functionality which is an immaterial event.

QUOTES: "All your choices are in a sense inevitable. A lot of the time, you might feel as though you have freedom to act as you wish (a view known as ‘voluntarism’), but taking into account your history, personality, mood and other factors, there is in fact an inevitability to everything you do."

"There’s no escaping the chain of cause and effect.”

"It’s useful to feel you could have done things differently, even if it’s a fiction.”

"Don’t reject the concept of ‘free will’: rethink it. The ‘compatibilist’ conception of free will acknowledges the causal necessity of the physical world, but it also recognises that, if no one ‘made me do it’, I acted freely."

DAVID: it is a reasonable approach, because it is obvious our personal background of influences always plays a role in our choices of action. Makes better sense than denying our ability to choose freely, as if our ability to choose did not exist.

dhw: This is all very much in line with the conclusions I tried to draw in earlier discussions. However, I do wish writers would actually provide a definition of what they mean by “free will” before embarking on such discussions. I can’t remember my own exact definition, but it was along the lines of: an entity’s conscious ability to control its decision-making process within given constraints. These were 1) outside constraints imposed by the situation or by Nature (you can’t “free-will” yourself to fly), and 2) constraints affecting the decision-making process itself, such as heredity, upbringing, education, illness, accidents, chance encounters. On the one hand, as this writer argues, we can’t escape the chain of cause and effect, so you can argue that free will is a fiction. On the other hand, you can argue that all the above influences have contributed to my identity, and my identity is mine alone. Therefore decisions are mine and mine alone (i.e. as above, no one outside of “me” made me do it), and this denotes freedom. Another all-important factor would be the source of consciousness, but since this is unknown, I would suggest that the question of whether we do or don’t have free will – as I have defined it - remains open.

Your approach is quite thorough. Our decision making is freely done from moment to moment, but all of the influences you describe must be in play. It comes down to teh question: free of what?

"There’s no escaping the chain of cause and effect.”

"It’s useful to feel you could have done things differently, even if it’s a fiction.”

"Don’t reject the concept of ‘free will’: rethink it. The ‘compatibilist’ conception of free will acknowledges the causal necessity of the physical world, but it also recognises that, if no one ‘made me do it’, I acted freely."

DAVID: it is a reasonable approach, because it is obvious our personal background of influences always plays a role in our choices of action. Makes better sense than denying our ability to choose freely, as if our ability to choose did not exist.

This is all very much in line with the conclusions I tried to draw in earlier discussions. However, I do wish writers would actually provide a definition of what they mean by “free will” before embarking on such discussions. I can’t remember my own exact definition, but it was along the lines of: an entity’s conscious ability to control its decision-making process within given constraints. These were 1) outside constraints imposed by the situation or by Nature (you can’t “free-will” yourself to fly), and 2) constraints affecting the decision-making process itself, such as heredity, upbringing, education, illness, accidents, chance encounters. On the one hand, as this writer argues, we can’t escape the chain of cause and effect, so you can argue that free will is a fiction. On the other hand, you can argue that all the above influences have contributed to my identity, and my identity is mine alone. Therefore decisions are mine and mine alone (i.e. as above, no one outside of “me” made me do it), and this denotes freedom. Another all-important factor would be the source of consciousness, but since this is unknown, I would suggest that the question of whether we do or don’t have free will – as I have defined it - remains open.

https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-think-about-free-will-in-a-world-of-cause-and-effect?ut...

"All your choices are in a sense inevitable. A lot of the time, you might feel as though you have freedom to act as you wish (a view known as ‘voluntarism’), but taking into account your history, personality, mood and other factors, there is in fact an inevitability to everything you do.

"There’s no escaping the chain of cause and effect. Even quantum physics and the randomness of quantum causation cannot offer us an escape because the ability to act randomly is not the same as having free will.

"Having voluntarist free will would mean being entirely capricious. To act free of causes would be to act without reason. Such a freedom would be gratuitous, since the only grounds for our choice would be the power to choose itself.

"The constraints upon our choices allow for the concept of character. We would have no moral character if we did not strongly feel that there were things we simply could not do, and others we felt we must.

"Praise and blame don’t depend on absolute freedom. To accept that one has done wrong and take responsibility for it is to resolve to try not to do it again and to put right anything that went wrong. We evidently do have the capacity to do this, and that is all that matters.

"It’s useful to feel you could have done things differently, even if it’s a fiction. It is only because we reflect on the things that could so easily have been done differently if conditions or our frame of mind had been slightly different that we learn to take responsibility and do better next time.

"Don’t reject the concept of ‘free will’: rethink it. The ‘compatibilist’ conception of free will acknowledges the causal necessity of the physical world, but it also recognises that, if no one ‘made me do it’, I acted freely.

"Achieve a free will worth having by aligning your first- and second-order desires. First-order desires include wanting cake or sex or to scratch yourself; second-order desires are your desires about these desires, such as wishing to resist the desire for cake. Free beings are ones who can act on their desires about their desires, and not just automatically on their desires."

Comment: it is a reasonable approach, because it is obvious our personal background of influences always plays a role in our choices of action. Makes better sense than denying our ability to choose freely, as if our ability to choose did not exist.

https://mindmatters.ai/2021/02/a-reader-asks-does-neuroscience-disprove-free-will/

"He found that there was a brain wave from the cortex about a half second before the person was aware of making the decision. Libet initially interpreted this as refuting free will — it seemed that our “decisions” are determined beforehand by physical processes in the brain and we merely experience the illusion of deciding freely.

"But Libet was an excellent scientist so he tested the hypothesis that free will isn’t real by asking the volunteers to occasionally veto their decision after making it — to decide to push the button but to then immediately decide not to. He found that there was no brain wave associated with the veto — i.e., the veto was not from the brain. Thus, the veto was immaterial and independent of brain processes, and it corresponded to free will. Libet concluded that our decisions consist of two parts: a preconscious “temptation” and a conscious acceptance or veto. The temptation was associated with brain activity and might in that sense be considered involuntary (even that is problematic). But the acceptance or veto of the temptation was not determined by brain activity and appeared to be immaterial (i.e. spiritual) in origin. Libet quipped that he hadn’t proven free will per se, but he had proved “free won’t.”

***

"Libet’s research with vetoing decisions has not been tested by other researchers. Research that purports to show determinism to be true is invalid because the neurobiological correlates of vetoing a decision have not been studied since Libet. The current state of neuroscience is that free will is clearly supported by the science.

"The philosophical perspective is that (in my view) the most cogent model of the soul is that of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. In their model, called hylemorphic dualism, there are two types of mental states — sensitive and rational. Sensitive states are sensation, perception, imagination, memory, and sensitive appetites (emotions), among others. These are tightly linked to matter and may be considered material powers. Human beings also have rational mental states, which are the powers of the intellect and the will. These abstract powers are immaterial — they are not caused by matter — and thus the will is not determined by the brain.

"The Aristotelian–Thomistic model fits Libet’s research very nicely — the material “temptation” comes from the sensitive material powers of the soul and the acceptance or veto comes from the immaterial will."

Comment: It is strange that no research has been done on Libet's second observation that an inhibitory decision has no EEG spike. As I view the soul drives the brain, there should be no spike if no action is to be taken. The delay after a go decision spike has been explained as a preparatory pause by the brain.

dhw: And the disagreement is not over the design theory but over your interpretation of God’s purpose and method of achieving that purpose, which leaves you with no idea how to explain the combination. And I will not raise the subject again so long as you do not force me to do so!

DAVID: I can easily explain the combination by telling you it is God's choice of methodology, and He never tells me why.

In the immortal words of John McEnroe: “You can’t be serious!” You can easily explain the logic of your belief by the fact that you have no idea why your God would have chosen the illogical combination of premises you impose on him, but that’s his fault for not telling you. You're kidding, right?

DAVID: And the appearance/emergence of consciousness with self-awareness creates a dualism: the material brain and the conscious self. Materialism seems to invent a living driver to drive the material car. No material brain can think without first producing immaterial consciousness. So there is no escape from some form and interpretation of dualism.

dhw: Correct. And when you say no material brain can think without first PRODUCING consciousness, there is no escape from some form and interpretation of materialism. You have understood the compromise.

DAVID: I don't view it so much as a compromise than a recognition of the reality of how material brains have to be part of the process.

Since you claim to be a dualist who believes in two separate entities (mind/soul and brain/body), I would have thought your recognition of the materialist’s belief that consciousness - the very essence of mind/soul - is an emergent product of the brain represented a compromise. But it really doesn’t matter. My point is that the dichotomy between dualism and materialism disappears once we accept that the material produces the immaterial, the product is as real as its material source, and we have no idea how the process works or what happens to the product when its source is dead. Nor do we know how the material source first came into being.

DAVID: You have agreed that we will always have the same disagreement.

dhw: And the disagreement is not over the design theory but over your interpretation of God’s purpose and method of achieving that purpose, which leaves you with no idea how to explain the combination. And I will not raise the subject again so long as you do not force me to do so!

I can easily explain the combination by telling you it is God's choice of methodology, and He never tells me why.

Under Dualism: materialism is only as our mind sees it

QUOTE: we cannot empirically observe matter outside and independent of mind, for we are forever locked in mind. All we can observe are the contents of perception, which are inherently mental. Even the output of measurement instruments is only accessible to us insofar as it is mentally perceived.

DAVID: I can expect the comment that the material brain conjures all of these impressions, but the point is the impressions we have are second hand representations of the outside world. We only know what the brain allows us to think it is as we use our mind to drive the the brain to produce impressions and thought. The mind uses the brain as a material tool, and produces immaterial thoughts and concepts.

dhw: Yes, yes, we all know that perception is subjective. We dealt with this ages ago when discussing epistemology. And yes, yes, we use our brains to acquire information and to give material implementation to our immaterial thoughts, but nobody knows whether “we” means two separate entities working together – soul and brain – or a single entity (brain) from which emerges the phenomenon we call consciousness. That is the unresolved conflict between material and dualism, and I have offered a compromise between the two theories, which you agreed was perfectly logical.

DAVID: And the appearance/emergence of consciousness with self-awareness creates a dualism: the material brain and the conscious self. Materialism seems to invent a living driver to drive the material car. No material brain can think without first producing immaterial consciousness. So there is no escape from some form and interpretation of dualism.

dhw: Correct. And when you say no material brain can think without first PRODUCING consciousness, there is no escape from some form and interpretation of materialism. You have understood the compromise.

I don't view it so much as a compromise than a recognition of the reality of how material brains have to be part of the process.

dhw: Yet again, and in bolded block capitals: I ACCEPT YOUR DESIGN ARGUMENT AS BEING PERFECTLY LOGICAL, AND IT IS A MAJOR REASON WHY I CANNOT EMBRACE ATHEISM. It is the theory bolded above that I reject – namely the theory that led you to say: “You are correct. I have no idea why He uses that method.” And we agreed to leave it at that. Please leave it at that and stop pretending that my complaint is against the design argument.

DAVID: You have agreed that we will always have the same disagreement.

And the disagreement is not over the design theory but over your interpretation of God’s purpose and method of achieving that purpose, which leaves you with no idea how to explain the combination. And I will not raise the subject again so long as you do not force me to do so!

Under Dualism: materialism is only as our mind sees it

QUOTE: we cannot empirically observe matter outside and independent of mind, for we are forever locked in mind. All we can observe are the contents of perception, which are inherently mental. Even the output of measurement instruments is only accessible to us insofar as it is mentally perceived.

DAVID: I can expect the comment that the material brain conjures all of these impressions, but the point is the impressions we have are second hand representations of the outside world. We only know what the brain allows us to think it is as we use our mind to drive the the brain to produce impressions and thought. The mind uses the brain as a material tool, and produces immaterial thoughts and concepts.

dhw: Yes, yes, we all know that perception is subjective. We dealt with this ages ago when discussing epistemology. And yes, yes, we use our brains to acquire information and to give material implementation to our immaterial thoughts, but nobody knows whether “we” means two separate entities working together – soul and brain – or a single entity (brain) from which emerges the phenomenon we call consciousness. That is the unresolved conflict between material and dualism, and I have offered a compromise between the two theories, which you agreed was perfectly logical.

DAVID: And the appearance/emergence of consciousness with self-awareness creates a dualism: the material brain and the conscious self. Materialism seems to invent a living driver to drive the material car. No material brain can think without first producing immaterial consciousness. So there is no escape from some form and interpretation of dualism.

Correct. And when you say no material brain can think without first PRODUCING consciousness, there is no escape from some form and interpretation of materialism. You have understood the compromise.

DAVID: You've repeated your illogical complaint again. I won't bother to answer. If I could get you to read some ID material directly, you would understand my design argument with clarity. The folks I quote are PhD's and MD's. They all think evolution is designed by an unnamed mind.

dhw: Yet again, and in bolded block capitals: I ACCEPT YOUR DESIGN ARGUMENT AS BEING PERFECTLY LOGICAL, AND IT IS A MAJOR REASON WHY I CANNOT EMBRACE ATHEISM. It is the theory bolded above that I reject – namely the theory that led you to say: “You are correct. I have no idea why He uses that method.” And we agreed to leave it at that. Please leave it at that and stop pretending that my complaint is against the design argument.

You have agreed that we will always have the same disagreement.

Under Dualism: materialism is only as our mind sees it

QUOTE: we cannot empirically observe matter outside and independent of mind, for we are forever locked in mind. All we can observe are the contents of perception, which are inherently mental. Even the output of measurement instruments is only accessible to us insofar as it is mentally perceived.

DAVID: I can expect the comment that the material brain conjures all of these impressions, but the point is the impressions we have are second hand representations of the outside world. We only know what the brain allows us to think it is as we use our mind to drive the the brain to produce impressions and thought. The mind uses the brain as a material tool, and produces immaterial thoughts and concepts.

dhw: Yes, yes, we all know that perception is subjective. We dealt with this ages ago when discussing epistemology. And yes, yes, we use our brains to acquire information and to give material implementation to our immaterial thoughts, but nobody knows whether “we” means two separate entities working together – soul and brain – or a single entity (brain) from which emerges the phenomenon we call consciousness. That is the unresolved conflict between material and dualism, and I have offered a compromise between the two theories, which you agreed was perfectly logical.

And the appearance/emergence of consciousness with self-awareness creates a dualism: the material brain and the conscious self. Materialism seems to invent a living driver to drive the material car. No material brain can think without first producing immaterial consciousness. So there is no escape from some form and interpretation of dualism.

DAVID: You've repeated your illogical complaint again. I won't bother to answer. If I could get you to read some ID material directly, you would understand my design argument with clarity. The folks I quote are PhD's and MD's. They all think evolution is designed by an unnamed mind.

Yet again, and in bolded block capitals: I ACCEPT YOUR DESIGN ARGUMENT AS BEING PERFECTLY LOGICAL, AND IT IS A MAJOR REASON WHY I CANNOT EMBRACE ATHEISM. It is the theory bolded above that I reject – namely the theory that led you to say: “You are correct. I have no idea why He uses that method.” And we agreed to leave it at that. Please leave it at that and stop pretending that my complaint is against the design argument.

Under Dualism: materialism is only as our mind sees it

QUOTE: we cannot empirically observe matter outside and independent of mind, for we are forever locked in mind. All we can observe are the contents of perception, which are inherently mental. Even the output of measurement instruments is only accessible to us insofar as it is mentally perceived.

DAVID: I can expect the comment that the material brain conjures all of these impressions, but the point is the impressions we have are second hand representations of the outside world. We only know what the brain allows us to think it is as we use our mind to drive the the brain to produce impressions and thought. The mind uses the brain as a material tool, and produces immaterial thoughts and concepts.

Yes, yes, we all know that perception is subjective. We dealt with this ages ago when discussing epistemology. And yes, yes, we use our brains to acquire information and to give material implementation to our immaterial thoughts, but nobody knows whether “we” means two separate entities working together – soul and brain – or a single entity (brain) from which emerges the phenomenon we call consciousness. That is the unresolved conflict between material and dualism, and I have offered a compromise between the two theories, which you agreed was perfectly logical.

DAVID: I have a firm belief God is the designer. The ID folks just don't mention Him by name as the designer, but since mostly they are devout Christians, the inference is obvious. Some of the fellows at Discovery Institute are devout Jews!!! You admit to the need for design. That logically requires a designing mind, a step you are not able to take, logical as it is.

dhw: For the umpteenth time, I do NOT have a problem with the design argument! Why do you keep forcing me to repeat what I DO have a problem with? How many of your ID scientists claim that your/their God changed pre-whale legs into fins before the pre-whales entered the water, and that your/their God preprogrammed or directly dabbled every single life form, econiche, natural wonder etc. in life’s history, 99% of which had no connection with humans although all of them were part of your/their God’s one and only goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans? Please don’t restart the game of picking on individual premises. It is the combination of premises that makes no sense – hence your acknowledgement that you have no idea why your God would have chosen your version of his method to fulfil your version of his purpose. However, that is what you believe, and we agreed to leave it at that. Let’s stick to that agreement.

You've repeated your illogical complaint again. I won't bother to answer. If I could get you to read some ID material directly, you would understand my design argument with clarity. The folks I quote are PhD's and MD's. They all think evolution is designed by an unnamed mind.

DAVID: The ilk I represent is the ID ilk, full of qualified scientists that I quote here. Surprise!! They believe everything is designed. I wish you would read their books.

dhw: You have switched from your theory that your God designed changes IN ANTICIPATION of changing conditions to the general theory of design. I have no problem with the design theory as such, and you know it! The problem is with your belief that your God personally preprogrammed or dabbled every life form, econiche, natural wonder etc., and that he did so in advance of requirements – e.g. he turned pre-whale legs into fins before whales entered the water – and that every single design was part of his one and only goal of evolving [=directly designing] humans.” Unfortunately it becomes impossible to avoid raising this subject again when you so radically distort my objections to your theory of evolution. Even you have told us that your ID folks try to avoid mentioning God!

DAVID: I have a firm belief God is the designer. The ID folks just don't mention Him by name as the designer, but since mostly they are devout Christians, the inference is obvious. Some of the fellows at Discovery Institute are devout Jews!!! You admit to the need for design. That logically requires a designing mind, a step you are not able to take, logical as it is.

For the umpteenth time, I do NOT have a problem with the design argument! Why do you keep forcing me to repeat what I DO have a problem with? How many of your ID scientists claim that your/their God changed pre-whale legs into fins before the pre-whales entered the water, and that your/their God preprogrammed or directly dabbled every single life form, econiche, natural wonder etc. in life’s history, 99% of which had no connection with humans although all of them were part of your/their God’s one and only goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans? Please don’t restart the game of picking on individual premises. It is the combination of premises that makes no sense – hence your acknowledgement that you have no idea why your God would have chosen your version of his method to fulfil your version of his purpose. However, that is what you believe, and we agreed to leave it at that. Let’s stick to that agreement.

dhw: I wonder how many evolutionary biologists maintain that God changed pre-whale legs into fins before they entered the water, or that current animals adapt in anticipation of conditions that do not yet exist. I hope you will never attempt to present your theory to a gathering of evolutionary biologists or indeed to any gathering of scientists of any ilk.

DAVID: The ilk I represent is the ID ilk, full of qualified scientists that I quote here. Surprise!! They believe everything is designed. I wish you would read their books.

dhw: You have switched from your theory that your God designed changes IN ANTICIPATION of changing conditions to the general theory of design. I have no problem with the design theory as such, and you know it! The problem is with your belief that your God personally preprogrammed or dabbled every life form, econiche, natural wonder etc., and that he did so in advance of requirements – e.g. he turned pre-whale legs into fins before whales entered the water – and that every single design was part of his one and only goal of evolving [=directly designing] humans.” Unfortunately it becomes impossible to avoid raising this subject again when you so radically distort my objections to your theory of evolution. Even you have told us that your ID folks try to avoid mentioning God!

I have a firm belief God is the designer. The ID folks just don't mention Him by name as the designer, but since mostly they are devout Christians, the inference is obvious. Some of the fellows at Discovery Institute are devout Jews!!! You admit to the need for design. That logically requires a designing mind, a step you are not able to take, logical as it is.

dhw: […] Proposal: Life and consciousness emerge from material substances (= materialism) but they constitute the immaterial components of our identity (= dualism). Whether the mechanism whereby the immaterial emerges from the material was designed by your God or not is a matter of faith, as is belief in an afterlife of what you called "an emergent product of the living brain".

DAVID: Yes to each his own. I'll stick to faith in God.

dhw: I’m delighted that you accept my compromise solution to the dualism v materialism debate, which fits in so perfectly with your own firmly stated belief that consciousness is “an emergent product of the brain”, and of course I accept your faith in God as the designer of this remarkable machine.

DAVID: Yes, design fits.

It does indeed. What did the designing and how it was done remain open questions, as they do with the whole history of evolution, but I accept your faith in God as the designer even if I can’t share it. We seem to be in agreement.

Yes:

dhw: I wonder how many evolutionary biologists maintain that God changed pre-whale legs into fins before they entered the water, or that current animals adapt in anticipation of conditions that do not yet exist. I hope you will never attempt to present your theory to a gathering of evolutionary biologists or indeed to any gathering of scientists of any ilk.

DAVID: The ilk I represent is the ID ilk, full of qualified scientists that I quote here. Surprise!! They believe everything is designed. I wish you would read their books.

You have switched from your theory that your God designed changes IN ANTICIPATION of changing conditions to the general theory of design. I have no problem with the design theory as such, and you know it! The problem is with your belief that your God personally preprogrammed or dabbled every life form, econiche, natural wonder etc., and that he did so in advance of requirements – e.g. he turned pre-whale legs into fins before whales entered the water – and that every single design was part of his one and only goal of evolving [=directly designing] humans.” Unfortunately it becomes impossible to avoid raising this subject again when you so radically distort my objections to your theory of evolution.Even you have told us that your ID folks try to avoid mentioning God!

dhw: […] Proposal: Life and consciousness emerge from material substances (= materialism) but they constitute the immaterial components of our identity (= dualism). Whether the mechanism whereby the immaterial emerges from the material was designed by your God or not is a matter of faith, as is belief in an afterlife of what you called "an emergent product of the living brain".

DAVID: Yes to each his own. I'll stick to faith in God.

dhw: I’m delighted that you accept my compromise solution to the dualism v materialism debate, which fits in so perfectly with your own firmly stated belief that consciousness is “an emergent product of the brain”, and of course I accept your faith in God as the designer of this remarkable machine.

DAVID: Yes, design fits.

It does indeed. What did the designing and how it was done remain open questions, as they do with the whole history of evolution, but I accept your faith in God as the designer even if I can’t share it. We seem to be in agreement.

DAVID: So you want cells to forge ahead on their own designing for the future to make new different species? God doesn't need a book of instructions. He always knows exactly what to do.

dhw: As usual, you insist that evolution requires a crystal ball. In my theory, cells react to current conditions – they do not design for the future. For example, pre-whales’ legs do not turn into fins before they enter the water, but they turn into fins as a result of their adaptation to new conditions. As regards instructions, of course your God would not need them! Your theory is that he provided the first cells with instructions for every undabbled life form, econiche, natural wonder etc. in the history of life! You wrote, however, that my intelligent cells would have to have “an enormous set of instructions”, whereas in fact they would not need any instructions at all, because (theistic version) your God gave them the intelligence to do their own designing.

DAVID: Knowing the complexity of the physiological changes needed to solve most of the gap advances in the whale series we recognize, and recognizing how current animals adapt, we have no reason to accept your theory. I view it as wishful thinking with no basis in the biological science of evolution. Knowing needs in the future is always part of designing.

dhw: I wonder how many evolutionary biologists maintain that God changed pre-whale legs into fins before they entered the water, or that current animals adapt in anticipation of conditions that do not yet exist. I hope you will never attempt to present your theory to a gathering of evolutionary biologists or indeed to any gathering of scientists of any ilk.

The ilk I represent is the ID ilk, full of qualified scientists that I quote here. Surprise!! They believe everything is designed. I wish you would read their books

DAVID: […] if life and consciousness exist we have clearly dualism, and it does come out of material substance. To repeat, life itself is an immaterial phenomenon, and consciousness certainly is.

dhw: That's fine with me. There is no dispute over the immateriality of life and consciousness. The dispute is over their source. The most obvious illustration of this is the belief that the soul is a separate entity which lives on after the death of the body. According to you, the source is your God’s own immaterial consciousness, to which it returns after death. That is pure dualism. A materialist will tell you that there is no separate entity, and when the body dies, the immaterial product of its materials also dies. However, I’m pleased that you have no objection to my compromise,which removes the sharp dichotomy between the two approaches. Proposal: Life and consciousness emerge from material substances (= materialism) but they constitute the immaterial components of our identity (= dualism). Whether the mechanism whereby the immaterial emerges from the material was designed by your God or not is a matter of faith, as is belief in an afterlife of what you called "an emergent product of the living brain".

DAVID: Yes to each his own. I'll stick to faith in God.

dhw: I’m delighted that you accept my compromise solution to the dualism v materialism debate, which fits in so perfectly with your own firmly stated belief that consciousness is “an emergent product of the brain”, and of course I accept your faith in God as the designer of this remarkable machine.

Yes, design fits.

dhw: As usual, you insist that evolution requires a crystal ball. In my theory, cells react to current conditions – they do not design for the future. For example, pre-whales’ legs do not turn into fins before they enter the water, but they turn into fins as a result of their adaptation to new conditions. As regards instructions, of course your God would not need them! Your theory is that he provided the first cells with instructions for every undabbled life form, econiche, natural wonder etc. in the history of life! You wrote, however, that my intelligent cells would have to have “an enormous set of instructions”, whereas in fact they would not need any instructions at all, because (theistic version) your God gave them the intelligence to do their own designing.

DAVID: Knowing the complexity of the physiological changes needed to solve most of the gap advances in the whale series we recognize, and recognizing how current animals adapt, we have no reason to accept your theory. I view it as wishful thinking with no basis in the biological science of evolution. Knowing needs in the future is always part of designing.

I wonder how many evolutionary biologists maintain that God changed pre-whale legs into fins before they entered the water, or that current animals adapt in anticipation of conditions that do not yet exist. I hope you will never attempt to present your theory to a gathering of evolutionary biologists or indeed to any gathering of scientists of any ilk.

DAVID: […] if life and consciousness exist we have clearly dualism, and it does come out of material substance. To repeat, life itself is an immaterial phenomenon, and consciousness certainly is.

dhw: That's fine with me. There is no dispute over the immateriality of life and consciousness. The dispute is over their source. The most obvious illustration of this is the belief that the soul is a separate entity which lives on after the death of the body. According to you, the source is your God’s own immaterial consciousness, to which it returns after death. That is pure dualism. A materialist will tell you that there is no separate entity, and when the body dies, the immaterial product of its materials also dies. However, I’m pleased that you have no objection to my compromise,which removes the sharp dichotomy between the two approaches. Proposal: Life and consciousness emerge from material substances (= materialism) but they constitute the immaterial components of our identity (= dualism). Whether the mechanism whereby the immaterial emerges from the material was designed by your God or not is a matter of faith, as is belief in an afterlife of what you called "an emergent product of the living brain".

DAVID: Yes to each his own. I'll stick to faith in God.

I’m delighted that you accept my compromise solution to the dualism v materialism debate, which fits in so perfectly with your own firmly stated belief that consciousness is “an emergent product of the brain”, and of course I accept your faith in God as the designer of this remarkable machine.

DAVID: So you want cells to forge ahead on their own designing for the future to make new different species? God doesn't need a book of instructions. He always knows exactly what to do.

dhw: As usual, you insist that evolution requires a crystal ball. In my theory, cells react to current conditions – they do not design for the future. For example, pre-whales’ legs do not turn into fins before they enter the water, but they turn into fins as a result of their adaptation to new conditions. As regards instructions, of course your God would not need them! Your theory is that he provided the first cells with instructions for every undabbled life form, econiche, natural wonder etc. in the history of life! You wrote, however, that my intelligent cells would have to have “an enormous set of instructions”, whereas in fact they would not need any instructions at all, because (theistic version) your God gave them the intelligence to do their own designing.

Knowing the complexity of the physiological changes needed to solve most of the gap advances in the whale series we recognize, and recognizing how current animals adapt, we have no reason to accept your theory. I view it as wishful thinking with no basis in the biological science of evolution. Knowing needs in the future is always part of designing.

dhw: If life and consciousness emerge from materials, we have materialism. If life and consciousness are separate “entities” from the materials, we have dualism. What I have proposed is a compromise between the two theories. Theistic version: your God created a material machine which generates life and consciousness. We leave open the question of whether what is generated (the immaterial living and conscious “self”) can survive the death of the machine. As far as I know, most materialists reject the concept of a God and therefore rely on chance as the creator of the original “machine”. They would almost certainly reject the possibility of an afterlife. What is your objection?

DAVID: None: if life and consciousness exist we have clearly dualism, and it does come out of material substance. To repeat, life itself is an immaterial phenomenon, and consciousness certainly is.

dhw: That's fine with me. There is no dispute over the immateriality of life and consciousness. The dispute is over their source. The most obvious illustration of this is the belief that the soul is a separate entity which lives on after the death of the body. According to you, the source is your God’s own immaterial consciousness, to which it returns after death. That is pure dualism. A materialist will tell you that there is no separate entity, and when the body dies, the immaterial product of its materials also dies. However, I’m pleased that you have no objection to my compromise,which removes the sharp dichotomy between the two approaches. Proposal: Life and consciousness emerge from material substances (= materialism) but they constitute the immaterial components of our identity (= dualism). Whether the mechanism whereby the immaterial emerges from the material was designed by your God or not is a matter of faith, as is belief in an afterlife of what you called "an emergent product of the living brain".

Yes to each his own. I'll stick to faith in God

dhw: I specified “undabbled” (dabbling = direct design). Every single programme would have had to contain detailed instructions, whereas cellular intelligence would require no instructions at all.

DAVID: So you want cells to forge ahead on their own designing for the future to make new different species? God doesn't need a book of instructions. He always knows exactly what to do.

As usual, you insist that evolution requires a crystal ball. In my theory, cells react to current conditions – they do not design for the future. For example, pre-whales’ legs do not turn into fins before they enter the water, but they turn into fins as a result of their adaptation to new conditions. As regards instructions, of course your God would not need them! Your theory is that he provided the first cells with instructions for every undabbled life form, econiche, natural wonder etc. in the history of life! You wrote, however, that my intelligent cells would have to have “an enormous set of instructions”, whereas in fact they would not need any instructions at all, because (theistic version) your God gave them the intelligence to do their own designing.

dhw: If life and consciousness emerge from materials, we have materialism. If life and consciousness are separate “entities” from the materials, we have dualism. What I have proposed is a compromise between the two theories. Theistic version: your God created a material machine which generates life and consciousness. We leave open the question of whether what is generated (the immaterial living and conscious “self”) can survive the death of the machine. As far as I know, most materialists reject the concept of a God and therefore rely on chance as the creator of the original “machine”. They would almost certainly reject the possibility of an afterlife. What is your objection?

DAVID: None: if life and consciousness exist we have clearly dualism, and it does come out of material substance. To repeat, life itself is an immaterial phenomenon, and consciousness certainly is.

That's fine with me. There is no dispute over the immateriality of life and consciousness. The dispute is over their source. The most obvious illustration of this is the belief that the soul is a separate entity which lives on after the death of the body. According to you, the source is your God’s own immaterial consciousness, to which it returns after death. That is pure dualism. A materialist will tell you that there is no separate entity, and when the body dies, the immaterial product of its materials also dies. However, I’m pleased that you have no objection to my compromise,which removes the sharp dichotomy between the two approaches. Proposal: Life and consciousness emerge from material substances (= materialism) but they constitute the immaterial components of our identity (= dualism). Whether the mechanism whereby the immaterial emerges from the material was designed by your God or not is a matter of faith, as is belief in an afterlife of what you called "an emergent product of the living brain".

https://mindmatters.ai/2021/01/can-our-minds-extend-beyond-our-bodies/

"Well, here’s a fun coffee break challenge offered by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., the author of Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) (2016):

"… our mind is not simply our perception of experiences, but those experiences themselves. Siegel argues that it’s impossible to completely disentangle our subjective view of the world from our interactions.

“'I realized if someone asked me to define the shoreline but insisted, is it the water or the sand, I would have to say the shore is both sand and sea,” says Siegel. “You can’t limit our understanding of the coastline to insist it’s one or the other. I started thinking, maybe the mind is like the coastline—some inner and inter process. Mental life for an anthropologist or sociologist is profoundly social. Your thoughts, feelings, memories, attention, what you experience in this subjective world is part of mind.”

"The definition has since been supported by research across the sciences, but much of the original idea came from mathematics. Siegel realized the mind meets the mathematical definition of a complex system in that it’s open (can influence things outside itself), chaos capable (which simply means it’s roughly randomly distributed), and non-linear (which means a small input leads to large and difficult to predict result).

"In math, complex systems are self-organizing, and Siegel believes this idea is the foundation to mental health."

"OLIVIA GOLDHILL, “SCIENTISTS SAY YOUR “MIND” ISN’T CONFINED TO YOUR BRAIN, OR EVEN YOUR BODY” AT QUARTZ:

"In a certain way, that should be reassuring. Some philosophers claim that mind is an illusion. Every month or so we hear that neuroscientists have somehow cracked the problem of consciousness, relying on one or another of the brain’s regions (the brain has many regions; you can find something new anywhere you look).

"At the end of the day, consciousness is the same conundrum it has always been: Why do you know you exist? A rock doesn’t know. Yet you both exist. What’s the difference?

"Why do you need other people to exist? A rock doesn’t care whether other rocks exist.

"We are all both sand and sea, in the sense that we are both material and immaterial. Now, self-organization theory may or may not offer significant answers but it may help some avoid the most foolish errors, like thinking that consciousness is an illusion.

"We may as well think that the number 7 is an illusion because one can’t point to a physical object and say, “There! That’s it! That’s the number 7!.”

Comment: Hard to argue with this approach.