A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE chemical problems (Identity)

by David Turell , Monday, August 06, 2018, 20:27 (2087 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: …why can’t your separate piece of God’s consciousness be conscious in life as you think it is in death? For “using the brain” see above.

DAVID: It is conscious considering that God 'breathes a soul into the body'.
And: The brain is a basic material mechanism for supporting consciousness, but it has to have something added (a soul) to have consciousness appear from the material side.

dhw" What do you mean by “supporting” consciousness? You keep telling us that the brain produces consciousness in the form of its electrical waves. Now the brain has to “have” consciousness (the conscious soul your God breathed into the body) before it can produce consciousness. Do you really find this logical? Might I suggest that if the soul is already conscious, it has to have the addition of a brain to give its consciousness material form? After all, if the soul is a piece of your God’s consciousness, it must have existed before the brain! (Don’t ask me how God pops it in – I’m only debating the meaning of dualism, not whether it’s true.)

Your paragraph above is the nubbin of our difference. We know that when we think the brain is producing electric waves that contain the thought. We don't know how consciousness appears from this material presentation of it. We both seem to agree the soul is somehow related to the physical appearance of consciousness. In life I do not think the soul, which is my essence, can develop thought without using the brain to accomplish it as I know I do. This is my version of dualism. I know it is not yours because you have a theory of dualism I do not recognize. As for my soul I don't think it appeared until I was born and developed conscious use of the brain as I developed. Remember I think we start as a blank slate and develop our personage over a lifetime as a material person and as a soul. I see me as a material me and an immaterial soul, but I experience material me as in change of me which is then represented by my immaterial soul.