A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two (Identity)

by dhw, Monday, July 02, 2018, 13:46 (2119 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] the starting point of this whole discussion was your insistence that only after your God had enlarged the brain was pre-sapiens capable of thinking new thoughts.....And it doesn’t remotely unravel the tangled logic of your insistence that the soul initiates new thoughts but new thoughts are only possible once the brain has already been enlarged.

DAVID: As usual you have ignored my statement that the soul MUST use the brain's networks to process new thought. If you accepted that, your whole position would fall apart. Continue your non-recognition if you wish, but I haven't changed, ever, in this view.

I keep agreeing that the soul must use the brain’s networks to process new thought. You have simply left out the section of my answer that actually acknowledges and describes the ongoing process. Here it is again:

“Of course thought is ongoing, and the “separate consciousness mechanism” doesn’t stop using the brain to supply information and to implement/express its thoughts. The concept of the spear is initiated by the dualist’s soul. It doesn’t come complete. The soul goes on issuing instructions to the brain, which goes on supplying information and giving material expression to the developing concept until pre-sapiens has a spear that will actually kill the live chunk of meat. (I have suggested that this process is what actually caused the expansion of the brain.) None of this even remotely changes the dualist’s contention that the soul does the thinking and the brain does the information-gathering and the expressing/implementing.” Or to put it another way, we continue to agree on how dualism works, and it is only your insistence on prior brain enlargement that falls apart, as explained in my conclusion.

DAVID: Think genius brain like Hawking or Einstein as obvious examples. The more complex computer producing a more complex output is a perfect example.

dhw: According to dualists, the complex computer/brain produces the material expression of the complex thoughts of the soul. If you believe the complex thoughts are the “output” of the complex computer/genius brain, you are a materialist, which is fine, but is the cause of all the contradictions I keep pointing out to you.

DAVID: Ignoring my theory as usual. An immaterial soul uses a material brain network to initiate and form thought.

Yes indeed, but you continue to ignore the question of HOW the soul or “separate consciousness mechanism”, as you have called it, uses the brain, and this is dealt with below.

dhw: Since you keep agreeing and then disagreeing on what dualism means, please make a decision:
1) In life the soul (“piece of God’s consciousness”, “separate consciousness mechanism”) conducts the thinking process while the brain provides information and means of material expression/implementation. Yes or no?

DAVID: No and explained fully above. Requires use of the networks.

Yes, as explained fully above, the soul uses the networks as it initiates/processes/ refines/completes thought. Now please tell us what the separate consciousness mechanism (soul) uses the networks FOR, apart from gathering information and giving material expression to its thoughts.

dhw: In death the same soul (“piece of God's consciousness”, “separate consciousness mechanism”) conducts the thinking process, while information and means of expression are provided by psychic powers such as telepathy? Yes or no?

DAVID: Yes using God's universal consciousness.

OK, so the piece of God’s universal consciousness uses God’s universal consciousness.

DAVID: Your inability to understand my written explanation of my theory is amazing. but if you accepted even a portion of it, it would destroy your approach to my big brain enlargement need theory. No wonder you wander around claiming to be confused by what I write.

There are two issues: the nature of dualism, and whether dualism is true. The former is what we are discussing here, and means the separation of the self into mind and body, soul and brain if you like, which work together in life. I accept your own statement that the soul “drives the initiation of the thought and uses the brain networks to complete it. The brain does not initiate or contribute. The brain is the recipient of the working soul’s output.” (June 24). Let’s modify that slightly by observing that even in initiating the thought, the dualist’s soul uses information provided by the brain (which is a contribution, but not an active one). It continues to use the brain throughout the process of completion, and I have described this ongoing process above with the example of the spear. In initiating the idea, the soul uses existing information (hunger, meat, need to kill). It then uses the brain to develop and implement the idea. And so you are right. I am confused by the theory that the soul, or "SEPARATE consciousness mechanism", which initiates ideas using existing information (it can hardly use information it doesn’t have), cannot initiate ideas until the brain, which does not initiate ideas, has already expanded.