Immunity: detecting dangerous bacteria (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, November 26, 2017, 19:09 (2335 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I'm not confused. Consciousness is received by the brain which the soul/consciousness uses to think.

dhw: “Uses to think”? Let’s clarify: the brain supplies information to the soul (so the soul uses the information), and then the soul uses the brain to make the body give physical expression to the thought, e.g. by action in the form of movement, speech etc. How does that enable the brain to “functionally THINK”?

The brain does not supply information to the soul. The soul/consciousness uses the brain as a receiver of a mechanism that allows thought and memory. Again the comparison of computer hardware (brain) and its uses of software (soul/consciousness).

DAVID: NDE's show the ability to separate and rejoin and that a soul/consciousness can function without a functional brain.

dhw: If the soul/consciousness can function without a brain (as in the afterlife you believe in), it means that consciousness does not need a brain, and yet you continue to insist than an organism without a brain can’t be conscious.

NDE's show consciousness functions without a brain, but the opposite is not true. A brain doesn't function without consciousness. Consciousness can only be received by brains for function and use.

DAVID: In my view consciousness can only exist in brains which are the only living matter that can receive it. And, of course, God can engineer anything to look intelligent with genome programming.

dhw: “Consciousness can only exist in brains”, and yet “consciousness can function without a functional brain” (and in the afterlife, without a brain of any kind). But you are not confused. Ah well, since you so often accidentally tell us that the brain thinks (you’ve done it twice more on the “learning new tasks” thread), how about this for a hypothesis: consciousness is NOT possible without certain chemical processes (materialism). In the animal world these take place within the brain. In other organisms such as bacteria the chemical processes take place within the cell itself, in its equivalent of a brain.

Boy, are you confused. Show me the bacterial equivalent of a brain! There isn't one neuron in sight. I've explained your afterlife point above. And I've explained my use of 'brain thinking' is shorthand so I don't have to type so much in repeated explainations, and you know it.

dhw: And here’s another hypothesis: if something learns by experience, alters its own DNA in order to cope with changing conditions, looks intelligent, and acts intelligently, then maybe it is intelligent.

And we know it can be programmed to look intelligent.