A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two (Identity)

by dhw, Monday, June 18, 2018, 14:10 (2132 days ago) @ David Turell

Once again I am telescoping threads, as the subject is the same.

dhw: […] I do not know why an immaterial “SEPARATE consciousness mechanism” should depend on the size of the brain to do its thinking. The size of the brain would only be relevant if the ability to think depended on the brain (= materialism) – which is part of the reconciliation theory you have admitted is possible.

DAVID: If the soul is a software that uses the brain s hardware to think in life, THAT is a form of dualism, which you refuse to accept. If thought requires two parts that is obviously dualism!

“Uses to think” is the expression that causes so many problems. I equate consciousness with the ability to think, i.e. I don’t know how we can be conscious without being able to think. Do you disagree? If the ability to think is a “SEPARATE consciousness mechanism” (your expression), and survives the death of the brain (your belief), then clearly it does not NEED the brain to think. It needs and "uses the brain" to provide the information it thinks about, and to give material expression/implementation to its thoughts. However, if the ability to think depends on the brain, AND survives the death of the brain, you have agreed it is possible that the brain has produced it and the product survives in the manner described by my theory. The alternative that you offer is that the ability to think is a separate piece of your God’s consciousness which is inserted into and lives in the brain, but is somehow incomplete (it can’t think independently) and therefore when it leaves the brain it has to have a brain equivalent inserted into its immateriality (what you call a “hardening”):

DAVID: What 'hardened' means is what was a software/hardware setup in life with soul (soft) and brain (hard) become a solo mechanism in death when the soul operates solely on its own (hardened).

The hardware brain is required to give material implementation/expression to the software thoughts, as exemplified by your excellent example with its three exclamation marks:
dhw: Your soul (you) “uses the computer to generate the thoughts.”

DAVID: In material form!!! But my soul has to use my brain to direct my fingers to respond appropriately as the thoughts in my brain appear!!

Yes, your soul uses your brain to give material form to its thoughts. And if the thoughts are NOT generated by the computer (brain), they must be generated by the software (soul) that sits inside the brain. And so if the soul survives, it only needs a hardware equivalent for observation and expression. Why do you keep insisting that a SEPARATE consciousness mechanism can only be conscious if it is not separate, and has to have a brain or a brain equivalent before it can think? Why do you NEED such convolutions when your software/hardware image describes a perfectly straightforward, interlocking relationship: software = the thinking soul, and hardware = the implementing/expressing brain?

dhw: We have agreed that in death the dualist's soul must fulfill the expressing/implementing function of hardware by using psychic methods, but its software function of providing the thoughts that require expression/implementation will remain unchanged.

DAVID: How do you KNOW that the software in life and death MUST remain the same? It is a great example of your rigid thinking about the possible mechanisms of the soul in life and death.

I don’t even KNOW if there is such a thing as a surviving soul, and nor do you! We are discussing the meaning of dualism, and I said we had agreed that in death the soul MUST use psychic methods of expression/implementation but its function of providing the thoughts WILL remain unchanged. Last Thursday yet again you agreed that it was the SAME separate consciousness mechanism in life and in death (you bolded the statements you accepted). Over and over again, you have agreed that if the soul survives, its identity remains the same, so once more: why do you NEED a new “separate consciousness mechanism” in death, other than for modes of observation and expression?

DAVID: I recognize your rigidity is to try and defend against my theory that bigger brains bring better artifacts by using thought more complex than before which is allowed by more complex brain circuits, a perfect explanation of the Lucy/Erectus difference in artifacts. God explains the gap in brain size. chance evolution won't.

I recognize that your rigidity is to try and defend your illogical theory that dualism means you have to have a larger brain in order to think more complex thoughts. I have no problem understanding this, but if bigger brains produce more complex thoughts, this means the brain is the producer of thought, and that is the materialistic opposite of dualism, in which it is the soul that produces thought. A divine dabble can explain the expansion. So can the process of new thoughts requiring new cells and connections for their implementation. My reconciliation theory allows for the brain to produce thought, to expand itself, and to produce a form of energy (soul) that might possibly survive the death of the brain; it also allows for your God as the possible inventor of the whole system, and even for him to do a dabble. I am still waiting for you to find a flaw in it.