A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE chemical problems (Identity)

by David Turell , Friday, August 10, 2018, 15:36 (2086 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: But I've said all along my soul and I are the same and work as the same entity.

dhw: So now we have a copy of you, which is on the quantum side of reality, being the same as you and working as one, except that the copy of you doesn’t have free will, because it is your body/brain that has free will.

More confused interpretation of what I write. Free will decisions are made by me/soul using the brain to think. The quantum reality and our living reality are not separate in the sense you imply. The wall of uncertainty is a metaphor for the fact that we only see the probabilities and not a clear basis of quantum activity.

DAVID: My soul is me and is not helpless any more than I am.

dhw: The problem is straightforward! Dualism divides us into soul and body/brain, with the soul comprising all our immaterial attributes (including consciousness and the ability to think), and for those who believe in an afterlife, the soul lives on with all those attributes. But against this are the findings of materialists who seize on the indisputable influence of the body/brain on those immaterial attributes and believe that eventually they will be able to prove that the body/brain are responsible for all those attributes. I don’t know why you refuse to consider the possibility that the materialists are right, but the material mechanisms may be (it is only a hypothesis) capable of producing the immaterial self that dualists believe in. This hypothesis allows for whatever faith you wish to embrace.

The electricity in the brain is the problem I am trying to solve. The problem is more complex
than your approach. What is the role of the electricity that appears in the brain every time I/soul initiate thinking? A quote of mine from the Egnor thread explains the problem:

David: I think the desire to think initiates thought as new original electrical activity in the brain. The electricity does not spark the thought, it appears as a representation of thought. The point is to answer this question: in the presence of any thought, why is there a new wave of electricity? For my view the soul/I are initiators of the electricity and the soul provides the conscious interpretation of the electricity as it appears in the brain. A longer version of I/soul think by using my brain. The appearance of the electric waves must be explained.