A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two; addendum (Identity)

by David Turell , Sunday, July 22, 2018, 15:22 (2098 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You seem surprised as what happens in the brain when thought occurs! It is represented by electric waves running around the networks!

dhw: Delighted to see you slide away from the “translation” theme. Now we have a new term. What do you mean by thought is “represented”? We know that thought is accompanied by electrical waves in the brain.

Accompanied? In material life thought is created by electric activity in the brain.

dhw: If you believe in an immaterial soul that thinks in English, you are a dualist. The electrical waves in the brain must therefore be a material RESPONSE to the thought. If you believe the thoughts are ENGENDERED by electrical waves in the brain, you are a materialist.

I'm simple accepting there is a material side.

DAVID: Because we all know that on the material side all thought is represented by ions.

dhw: Again your new term “represented”. What does it mean? We know that there are electrical waves in the brain when we think.

They are creating thought.

dhw: Your belief in an afterlife has your soul thinking without electrical waves. The clear inference for a dualist is that electrical waves are a material response to thought.

Your separatist view that the soul dictates to the brain. i know as I/soul use the brain to create thought. I view my soul as translating into ions and back out from the ions the thought I/soul created using the ions.

DAVID: And I say as me, the soul uses the brain just as I do, for creation of thought.

dhw: But you cannot come up with any “use” other than the provision of information and of material expression, other than translating English thought into ions which have to be translated into English.

Isn't that 'use' enough, to think/have consciousness because of the complexity of the ions in the brain's networks? That is material initiation and expression. And we can't explain it.

DAVID: I've brought out the ions because of what I think of your garbled view of the role of the soul. The soul is me and we both use the brain to think as one.

dhw: The ions don’t make the slightest difference, since they are part of the brain’s activity. And yes, in dualism you/your soul and you/your brain are one in life, but they have different functions, as supported by NDEs in which the patient is able to remain his/her thinking, remembering, feeling, decision-making self without a brain.

You seem to be accepting my view that the soul functions differently in life and in death.

dhw: I can find no logic in your repeated acknowledgement that the soul initiates thoughts in English and yet has to translate them into wet ions so that it can translate them back again into English.

DAVID: I might ask: is your soul an exact representation of your mind, personality structure and consciousness?

dhw: “Representation” again. No, in dualism it is not a representation. It IS your mind etc. And I still can’t find any logic in the above “translation” theory.

Simple: you and I think using the brain's ions. We can't have thoughts without the ions. But what you hear in your mind is English words. Somehow the thought created electricity is translated back into English. I say the soul provides that immaterial mechanism.

DAVID: I view my soul as just that, an immaterial me which I contain in life. and since I contain it, it works just like me with the brain because it is me, and the brain is where thoughts originate when I put them there. In other words my soul is me, just as you have pointed out.

dhw: Yes, it is you, so why do you keep trying to make it a representation of you, or making it just like you? Yes, it works with the brain, and since you believe it is housed in the brain, of course the brain is the location in which thoughts originate. But it is the soul that originates them. DUALISM = two things (soul and brain/body) and NDEs are used as evidence that when the location disappears, only one thing is left: the thinking, feeling etc. soul. Therefore it must be the soul does the thinking and feeling etc.

Once again you are separating yourself from your soul. My soul is me. Dualism = two things (soul/me and brain/body). My soul is the God-given mechanism that creates consciousness from electrical activity and is my immaterial image that enters the afterlife.

According to Eben Alexander in afterlife the souls have human recognizable forms and can be identified.