New Miscellany 1: Inventing God, our brain (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, June 18, 2025, 09:39 (9 days ago) @ David Turell

Inventing God

DAVID: If my God created everything He must have controlled evolution!!!! What are you smoking? Major evolution is over. We are the logical endpoint with our amazing brain.

dhw: There you go again! If your God decided he wanted to create a free-for-all, he deliberately sacrificed control. The prime analogy is human beings, to whom you say he gave free will. You have also included murderous bacteria and viruses. He could have given the same “free will” or autonomous intelligence to the original cells, enabling them to make their own physical adjustments and improvements in response to new conditions.

You have ignored all of this response to your theory that he must have “controlled” evolution.

dhw: You stated earlier that evolution was over and you were then forced to retract such a ludicrous prophecy. Now it’s “major” evolution.

DAVID: By "major" I mean the appearance of new species, but we still see minor adaptations.

We have no idea what species will appear during the next three thousand million years.

dhw: That still doesn’t mean that your messy, cumbersome, inefficient version of God started out with the one and only purpose of designing us plus food, and therefore designed 99.9 out of 100 species that had nothing to do with us. I don’t smoke. But I do offer alternatives, which you reject on the grounds that they endow him with thought patterns and emotions like ours, although you agree that he may well have thought patterns and emotions like ours.

DAVID: Your humanized God has no comparison to my God who does not need entertainment or experimentation. He does not change His mind or suddenly have new ideas like yours. I agree He and we may mimic each other. That is a whole different level of comparison.

Of course my alternatives are different to your illogically messy theory about your inefficient God’s purpose and method! They are also different from the distorted version you present: I have rejected the word “entertainment” in favour of your own term “enjoyment”, and I have never said he changes his mind. Nor do I even say we mimic each other. It is perfectly conceivable that the creator will endow his creations with some of his own characteristics. And even you have acknowledged that my alternatives fit in logically with the known history of life. Your focus on “humanization” is your sole objection, and it has long since been discredited. Do you really want me to repeat the details?

The Bible

DAVID: I am using the accepted conceptual form of the Biblical God.

And:
DAVID: I told you current Jewish thinking softens the OT's God you reject as I do.

And:
DAVID: The 'stories' like the Flood are just invented stories to make a point. The current view picks and choses. Evolution as in the current mechanism is not discussed in the Bible.

So if your view of God is the “accepted conceptual form of the Biblical God”, most current believers apparently think the Bible tells us God is an inefficient designer, used evolution but designed all species individually, is all-powerful but has no control over the murderous bacteria and viruses he has created, has tried but often failed to provide remedies for the suffering he has caused, wants to be recognized and worshipped but has no self-interest, enjoys creating but does not create because he enjoys it, may have thought patterns and emotions in common with ours, but has no thought patterns or emotions in common with ours. And the Bible is not the word of God but the word of fiction writers who can be ignored if you don’t like their stories.

Introducing the brain: real or imaginary

dhw: It always surprises me that in spite of your belief in dualism (as opposed to materialism), you constantly support the theory that consciousness arises from the materials of the brain.

DAVID: Your usual confusion. The brain receives consciousness in various parts of the brain. This research tells us where.

dhw: So the frontal cortex is not watching the fusiform gyrus and is not telling us anything. That was the whole point of my question. According to your dualism, our consciousness is the immaterial "us" or self which receives information from the brain, processes that information, and directs the brain accordingly. How else could “we” (our conscious self) live on after death, as you believe from your study of NDEs? And of course, you may be right. But you keep contradicting yourself.

DAVID: Your interpretation creates your confusion. The whole brain works as usual while receiving consciousness in various special parts. Still pure dualism.

What are the “usual” workings of the brain? According to the article, the activity of the fusiform gyrus shows “us” which of its images is real and which is imaginary, and you say the frontal cortex passes the information on to “us”. How can it pass the information on to “us” if it is not conscious of what it is passing on, and who or what is “us”? In other words, if the different parts of the material brain don’t know what they’re doing because they only receive consciousness, what is their work in a) the production and b) the awareness of real and imaginary images?

Continued in Part Two