Introducing the brain (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, June 02, 2018, 08:40 (2153 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: As an agnostic, I accept the possibility that your God exists, and if he does, then of course he must be the basis of the universe. What I object to is the illogicality of arguments such as your belief that a piece of God’s consciousness is incapable of thought without a brain until there is no brain. The illogicality has nothing to do with my agnosticism or with the impossibility of proof.

DAVID: Not illogical to me. In life the soul must work with the brain circuits to produce thought we recognize within ourselves.

But you believe that in death the same soul doesn’t need the brain circuits to produce thought we recognize. Or do you believe you will be a zombie in the afterlife, unable to think? (See below regarding the word "produce".)

DAVID: Why do you approach the living soul as separate from the living you?

When did I ever say it was separate? That is your idea, when you claim that it is a piece of God’s consciousness which lives in the brain and consciously says goodbye to the brain when the brain dies. I keep trying to explain that the dualistic self you claim to believe in has TWO parts, and that is why it is called DUALISM: one part is the soul and one part is the brain/body, and in life they work together performing different FUNCTIONS (not the same as separation). But then, as you keep agreeing and then disagreeing, the same thinking, feeling, remembering soul of you the dualist separates from the brain.

DAVID: The living you produces thoughts through your living brain. When the soul reaches death it carries all of the recorded past with it.

In dualism the “living you” is a combination of mind/soul and body. You have not explained what you mean by “produce”. If the soul produces thoughts through the brain, do you mean the soul does the thinking, and the brain does the expressing/implementing? Or do you – with your Alice in Wonderland logic - mean the same soul can only have memories, feelings and the ability to think so long as it is in the brain, except that it has memories, feelings and the ability to think when it is not within the brain?

DAVID: No it is not the same. In death it only remembers, observes and discusses.

I’m amazed that you should think that the soul in death can discuss things without being able to think, and can observe things without having any feelings about them. Especially when you keep agreeing that the soul in life is the same “personage” as the soul in death. How can you be the same personage if you can’t think or feel?

DAVID: I fully agree with you that sapiens brain is 150 cc smaller from new complexity.

dhw: Thank you. Then perhaps you will stop telling me that the only brain response to new thoughts is shrinkage.

DAVID: We both know that heavy use of the brain shrinks it and we also know there are areas within the shrinkage of local enlargement with special use. What is your problem?

That is precisely my question to you. The quotes you have given us confirm what I keep telling you: that particular areas expand. You have agreed that shrinkage is the result of complexification over thousands and thousands of years. It is irrelevant to the question of why pre-sapiens’ brain EXPANDED, and the only evidence we have is that parts of the brain are known to expand BECAUSE of new usage – not in anticipation of new usage. The latter is your argument when you say God had to expand the brain to enable pre-sapiens to have new thoughts.

DAVID: All we don't know is how the brain naturally jumped from 400 cc to 1,200 cc in several jumps over 3-4 million years. You are looking for some logical explanation. All I see is God.

dhw: Of course I am looking for a logical explanation, and the one I am offering does not in any way exclude your God. What it does exclude is the illogicality I keep complaining about, as repeated at the beginning of this post.

DAVID: The illogical approach you have is viewing your soul as separate from the living you.

Separation is dealt with above. The real irony in your remark is that my THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE offers you complete unity of brain and soul, and you don’t like it because it opposes your idea of a SEPARATE soul (piece of God’s consciousness) that pops in and then out of the brain, although it is NOT separate because it can’t think without the brain, except that it IS separate because it CAN think without the brain.