A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two (Identity)

by David Turell , Thursday, June 14, 2018, 20:49 (2136 days ago) @ dhw

I wrote this yesterday, but for some unknown reason, failed to post it!

DAVID: I see the sun nine minutes after the light left it. I make the assumption it is still there when I see it. You theory is still having immaterial information produced by a material object, the sun. No real explanation for consciousness except pure materialism.

dhw: That is precisely the point of my analogy! Just as the material sun produces immaterial information which (theoretically) can go on existing indefinitely, the material brain produces the immaterial soul which (theoretically) can go on existing indefinitely. I am not trying to explain consciousness. I am trying to reconcile materialism and dualism!

DAVID: All you are presenting is pure materialism, not a reconciliation.

dhw: I’ll stick to the theistic version of my theory: if your God has created a material mechanism which produces a soul, i.e. a form of consciousness like his own, and this soul survives the material mechanism that produced it, maintaining its individual identity while “returning to God” (the scenario you envisage), would you call that “pure materialism”?

I've admitted that this is a possible theory. I've never rejected it out of hand. Note my entry from yesterday describing the gap between Lucy and Erectus. If that is a real gap, and no intermediate fossils are ever found, it is good evidence for you thought. My thought is Lucy was conscious but Erectus had consciousness, following the idea that bigger brains had deeper thought