Introducing the brain (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, May 21, 2018, 20:09 (2164 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Monday, May 21, 2018, 20:15

dhw: If the “soul” is a piece of God’s consciousness, as you believe, and if there are TWO parts of the self, is not reasonable to assume that the role of God’s consciousness is to be the conscious part of the self, which then retains its consciousness when the material part dies?

DAVID: Those are your 'ifs'. The material brain is not part of the soul.

dhw: They are YOUR ifs! You claim to be a dualist, which = having a material self and an immaterial self, and you claim that the “soul” is a piece of God’s consciousness which separates from the body at material death. And yet you keep saying that in life the brain and soul are inseparable, because the soul can’t think without the brain. Now apparently the brain is NOT part of the soul, which can only mean they ARE separate entities (as in dualism – though of course they work together in life). And so to complete the confusion, your “soul” can’t think without a material brain, but it can think when there is no material brain. Or maybe it can’t (see above and welcome to zombie heaven) because NDEs are the only evidence we have that it CAN.

Iv have fully thought about your approach to the soul, and that is why I have always stated the soul operates by different mechanism in life and in death. In life it is within the body, and there is no body in death. You want a static soul but it must alter itself in an afterlife.

dhw: The two possible relationships are that your God inserted the “soul” (his consciousness), which uses the brain/body to gather information and to implement its thoughts, or that the “soul” is generated by the cells of the brain/body. My theory is a materialism which might lead to dualism (a form of energy that may exist independently of materials), and that is how we can reconcile the two schools of thought. You have acknowledged the logical split in your own thinking, and you have not yet found any logical flaws in mine.

If the soul arises from the brain that is pure materialism n o matter how you try to alter the concept.

DAVID: I repeat: it is more likely to me that God supplies a software to the brain which must use the hardware to think. I've simply made a logical choice of two possibilities. And you say that is my dualism.

dhw: You also believe that the software can do its thinking without the hardware when there isn’t any hardware. You have acknowledged this logical split in your thinking, but you call your choice logical.

DAVID: I've explained it by stating the soul mechanism is different in life and in death.

dhw: See below on your vagueness concerning “mechanisms”.

DAVID: Immaterial in both states. Same person, your point to say the soul is unchanged is dealing with wholly immaterial concepts: 'personage' and soul. I believe they are at a quantum level and couterintuitive, with changing mechanism forms. Again the reason why I present quantum mechanics as the basis for the universe. Same personage does not require the same quantum substrate.

dhw: I have asked you what mechanisms you mean, other than those of observation and communication, in which material means will have to be replaced by immaterial (e.g. telepathy) and you have not responded. If you wish to call the new means of observation and communication “quantum substrates”, feel free. That still doesn’t change the fact that if the same piece of your God’s consciousness CAN’T think without a brain but CAN think without a brain (see above), you have a contradiction which I suggest can only be resolved by the theory I have proposed.

I've gone to quantum mechanics, which no one understands. I can go no further to answer your obviously impossible demands. I have always proposed that soul is based in quantum mechanics, which is the basis of the universe and the basis of a seemingly intelligent universe. You must take all of these factors in analysis of how soul might work. A soul that lives in a living body obviously works with that body. In afterlife there is no body. For me it must operate differently, and not just by your aspect of telepathy.