A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two (Identity)

by David Turell , Friday, April 27, 2018, 18:59 (2191 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I simply view this as a review of everything presented in the past and my answer is the same. Living cells run on information they possess. Where that information came from is up for debate etc.

dhw: You have missed the point. I began with your hypothesis, and am now considering the materialist alternative before tackling the dichotomy problem.

I didn't miss the point. You don't like to accept the point taht cells run on implanted information.

DAVID: Disease of the brain alters its function and obviously affects how the s/s/c can think, if as I propose, it is tightly interfaced with the brain cells in order to produce thought that the owner of that brain can recognize in his head.

dhw: Yes, it is obvious that diseases alter the way people think. But if the s/s/c functions as the immaterial thinker and the brain functions as the material implementer, the brain cells do not “produce” the thought; they express or implement it. How can material diseases and drugs change an immaterial soul? Do the souls of the dementia victim, drug addict and drunkard still think “normally”, but their receiver brains don’t get the message?

If the brain expresses the s/s/c thoughts as it does, if diseased it does it in garbled fashion, obviously.

DAVID: I cannot accept the alternative that the inorganic universe has any intelligence of its own. The only panpsychism possible is that the universe is an extension of God's mind. Of course intelligence exists in this universe. It is the miraculous result of the evolution of life, whose appearance is a miracle in and of itself.

dhw: Once we accept the existence of “intelligence”, we have to accept dualism in so far as we are composed of material and immaterial attributes. The dichotomy concerns the source of the immaterial attributes. If it is immaterial, it should not be changed by material influences (e.g. diseases and drugs), and indeed modern scientific research is based largely on the premise that materials are the source. But if so, how can immaterial thought change its own source – as is also proven by modern scientific research? The dichotomy is resolved if the cells are in sub-communities which provide the thought as well as its expression/implementation but which, being material, can also be changed by outside factors (diseases and drugs).

You miss the point that the s/s/c is firmly welded to the brain and cannot operate properly if the brain is sick or non-functional. I still view it as software at a quantum level.

dhw: You have ignored the ant analogy, demonstrating how intelligences subdivide into different functions which interact to form a community of communities.

Of course I have. Ants, as individuals, act automatically as shown in the entry on ant bridges. Individual neurons in networks are also automatic. The brain is constructed in four or five parallel networks, which the AI folks have noted and are trying to replicate, basically as your community of communities.

dhw: In your own hypothesis, the s/s/c has its “home” in the cell communities – unless you think the brain is not composed of cells. But you believe that cells and cell communities such as bacteria and ants need your God to think for them, whereas large organisms, especially humans, have an s/s/c which lives in the cells and makes its own decisions. Even you admit there is no way of telling the difference.

My point always is that automaticity in single cells is from implanted intelligent information, and one cannot tell from the outside if the opposite point that the cell has ITS OWN intelligence is true. Only one position is correct.

dhw: My hypothesis resolves the above dichotomy, allows for the existence of your God and even for a soul that lives on (see my post of 5 January under “Reconciling materialism and dualism”). Theistically, it amounts to your God doing what humans have tried to do for centuries: invent a mechanism that can think for itself. So apart from the fact that it doesn’t fit in with your fixed beliefs, please tell me what flaws you can find in its logic.

I don't see a solution at all. You are faced with explaining the arrival of the human brain, which is totally unnecessary for survival. You cannot separate the issue of consciousness from the arrival of consciousness, which you have just tried to do. The whole issue is a constellation of facts and factors. There are the issues of both how and why it all happened that must be considered. Your tentative accepting God solves nothing. Nor does isolating it from all we do know. It is logical only if confined by your limits.