A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two (Identity)

by David Turell , Thursday, July 05, 2018, 21:29 (2118 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: To repeat: the brain supplies complex networks for the soul to use in refining and completing thought. The networks allow for collating all the various factors that will contribute to a final conclusion, refining the thought and expressing it. Complexity of network is required for increased complexity of concept.

dhw: Yes, the networks provide ongoing information for the soul to collate and refine the thought, and the networks enable the thought to be materially expressed and implemented. Your last sentence is at best ambiguous, so let’s clarify: increased complexity of network is required to express increased complexity of concept. Here’s the process: first we have the soul initiating the thought (you have agreed). This requires material expression. New information comes from the material expression, as a result of which the soul complexifies the thought, and this in turn demands increased complexification of the network for its implementation. The complexification of the concept must precede the complexification of the networks which are to express the concept. It makes no sense for the networks to complexify themselves in advance of the concept they have to express!

This is totally backward. I view my relationship to my brain as if I am siting at my computer creating a more complex output than I could with my last, less complex computer. Let's take your early memories. Do your childhood memories go back beyond 2 1/2 years? Most don't because the memory circuits aren't built yet. Your soul uses and recognizes those immaterial memories by using the brain memory networks. Your soul is filled with immaterial memories of your life. As I type at the computer I must spell from memory or use the spell check the computer supplies. The only material appearance is on the screen or printed paper. Further we find that only certain brains are of a genius quality. Why the difference unless their brains are different from the low IQ folks? Soul/I/you drives thought which it makes in the brain networks and it appears as immaterial thought to you/I. The soul is an immaterial mechanism which makes thought appear to us immaterially from wet ion filled neurons connected by wet dendrites, all of which are material.

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dhw:I have attempted to resolve this dichotomy, whereas you still don’t seem to recognize it.[/i]

DAVID: I don't see a dichotomy, if one accepts the theory that an immaterial soul must use a material brain to refine thought, at the animal and the human level. Clearly a dualistic view.

dhw: That is not in dispute as a description of the process! What is in dispute is your insistence that the expansion or complexification of the brain must precede the thoughts that require expansion or complexification. The moment you make the thinking process itself dependent on the brain (as opposed to its being dependent on information provided by the brain – otherwise it would have nothing to think about), you embrace materialism.

As explained above soul drives the thought process by using the brain networks as its tool, but what it also does is makes it appear as immaterial thought to us in a way we don't understand.

dhw: The dualist’s soul is what you have described as a SEPARATE consciousness mechanism, which is interlocked with the brain. It does all the thinking, which is why dualists believe that it constitutes the thinking self which survives the death of the brain.

That is not the way I view the soul and I've stated that over and over. That is YOUR dualism concept. My view of the soul is that it drives thinking using the brain networks and makes it appear as immaterial thought.

dhw: In life, expansion/complexification are the consequence of its thinking, as illustrated by modern science.

Only in the completely enlarged sapiens brain, the only one we have to study. Do you think erectus could do differential calculus or even think to invent it? The concept existed at their time of evolution. All those complex concepts existed before some bright mind found them.

dhw: This supports your dualism. But modern science also shows that the brain affects the thinking (e.g. through drugs and diseases), which supports your materialistic theory that the brain changes before thoughts are initiated. I’m sorry you can’t see the dichotomy.

No dichotomy. A sick brain makes the soul have sick thoughts, when recognizing the brain networks are used by the soul to think. The soul initiates thoughts which is it then fully creates using the networks, and then acts as a bridge to allow immaterial thoughts to appear, normal or sick.