Big brain evolution: learning new tasks (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, April 24, 2018, 10:54 (2193 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: Following your analogy, yet again the enlarged pfc/hardware allows for the implementation of the more complex thought produced by the “soul” software. Only a materialist will argue that thought cannot be produced without a brain (and the materialist may be right), and any dualist who believes that the thinking “soul” survives the death of the brain but in life depends on the brain for its ability to think has missed the point of NDEs as evidence for his dualism.

DAVID: Your usual confusion. The very complex pfc works with the s/s/c to create complex ideas. The s/s/c must use the pfc networks to create the complex concept to implement the active thought to the living person. I'm sure you think in words in your head as I do.If the brain is non-functional in NDE or death, the s/s/c operates differently. We have agreed to all of this in the past.

There is no confusion on my part. Dualism means TWO: one is material and the other immaterial, no matter how interdependent they are, and this two-ness only applies to life. Yes, I think in words (but I also have feelings, which are not words), and they are immaterial until I use my materials to speak them or write them. I don’t know what you mean by “implement the active thought to the living person”. If there is a “soul”, it is the source of the living person’s thought, and interacts with the living person’s material self in order to give material expression or implementation to their thoughts. Of course an immaterial soul in an immaterial world must operate differently but, as you have agreed in the past, you will still be “you” if there is an afterlife. “You” are then your thinking soul and – a point you steadfastly go on ignoring – it is NDEs, i.e. the experience of a separate thinking “you” or “soul”, that provides believers with their evidence for dualism in life, i.e. a thinking “soul” and a materially implementing brain/body.