Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, June 13, 2018, 15:25 (2135 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: That is not my comment. A mechanism is not a state but, as I said earlier, a structure or system that performs a particular function, and my proposal is that the “mechanism for consciousness” is a structure that GENERATES (not receives) consciousness and is called a brain.

DAVID: I modified your concept to fit my theory. Your statement above is pure materialism. I theorize that consciousness has an inherent mechanism all its own that can use the brain for thought in life or think without it in death.

dhw: Of course it is materialism. You have to read the rest of the theory to understand how it can be reconciled to dualism. “Use the brain for thought” is the obfuscation which I keep objecting to and which you keep repeating.

dhw: Does this mean that in dualism the separate mechanism cannot think without the brain (although it does when there is no brain), or does it mean that in life it processes the information provided by the brain, and uses the brain to express/implement its thoughts? In the past, you have sometimes said it’s the latter, but you change from day to day. What is today’s answer?

DAVID: The answer never changes despite your efforts to reinterpret me from day to day. the soul uses the brain in life for receiving info and giving instructions and uses the brain networks to generate thought. It operates on its own in the afterlife because it has more than one method of operation at its disposal.

dhw: “Uses the brain networks to generate thought” is the same slippery wording that I keep trying to grasp. Of course in dualistic interaction it uses the brain networks to provide and express what it thinks about, but if the soul is a “SEPARATE CONSCIOUSNESS MECHANISM” (your expression), what is its function in the relationship between soul and brain if it is not to do the thinking, i.e. to process the information provided, to work out its responses, and to pass on its instructions to the brain/body? As regards “methods of operation”, we have agreed that these refer to the means used by the SAME separate conscious mechanism to observe and communicate. See also “Introducing the brain”.

If you keep in mind the software/hardware analogy you should not be confused. Both are required to operate the computer. I view the soul as software using the brain to create thought. I view me sitting at my computer to produce written thought in the same way as I visualize me using my brain to create thought. I hope your use of the word "obfuscation" does not imply that I am trying to confuse you.