Searching for GOD...

[ekim]

Thank you for your response, Alan.

Excellent. Now, why on earth is a 'soul' needed to make a choice, when a deterministic brain can do the job? Whether we are talking about unconscious thought processes or conscious thought processes, they are all integral to the brain. For that we have plenty of supporting evidence. However there is no evidence for the existence of a 'soul' never mind the capabilities that you would like to give it. It does seem a rather pointless entity to bring into the equation.

I think the answer to that might revolve around the meaning of 'soul' which originally meant 'life', as opposed to 'life form', and so a dead brain would cease to be deterministic and would be unable to do any job.  In religions there is an association of life and consciousness which has been referred to as the 'light of life'.  The objective is to preserve a clarity of that 'light' as in this Jesus saying : 'The lamp of the body is the eye. If the eye is clear then the whole body may have its illumination; but if your eye is impaired then the whole body will seem full of darkness. Similarly, if your inner light is replaced by ignorance imagine how great that darkness will be."

[Enki]

I think the answer to that might revolve around the meaning of 'soul' which originally meant 'life', as opposed to 'life form', and so a dead brain would cease to be deterministic and would be unable to do any job.  In religions there is an association of life and consciousness which has been referred to as the 'light of life'.  The objective is to preserve a clarity of that 'light' as in this Jesus saying : 'The lamp of the body is the eye. If the eye is clear then the whole body may have its illumination; but if your eye is impaired then the whole body will seem full of darkness. Similarly, if your inner light is replaced by ignorance imagine how great that darkness will be."

If you are simply suggesting that your interpretation of  'soul' as a life force, then this has little to bear on the subject in hand. From my point of view, people whose brains have ceased to function, cannot make decisions for the obvious reason that decisions are the results of brain activity.

As far as life and consciousness are concerned, I prefer to look at what we have learned and what can learn from the natural world. I would find it difficult to regard fungi as conscious entities, but I would have no problem in regarding such animals as crows, antelope, tigers, wolves etc. as being conscious entities. Indeed some of them seem to show a strong degree of self awareness.

I don't really find such sayings as 'the lamp of the body is the eye' to be particularly useful. I immediately think of a blind person, who might well say that for him 'the lamp of the body is the ear'. Not sure what exactly this inner light means and how you could replace it by ignorance either. Still, this seems to have little to do with the main thrust of how we make choices, which was the subject of the post that you replied to.

Cheers

[ekim]

If you are simply suggesting that your interpretation of  'soul' as a life force, then this has little to bear on the subject in hand. From my point of view, people whose brains have ceased to function, cannot make decisions for the obvious reason that decisions are the results of brain activity.

As far as life and consciousness are concerned, I prefer to look at what we have learned and what can learn from the natural world. I would find it difficult to regard fungi as conscious entities, but I would have no problem in regarding such animals as crows, antelope, tigers, wolves etc. as being conscious entities. Indeed some of them seem to show a strong degree of self awareness.

I don't really find such sayings as 'the lamp of the body is the eye' to be particularly useful. I immediately think of a blind person, who might well say that for him 'the lamp of the body is the ear'. Not sure what exactly this inner light means and how you could replace it by ignorance either. Still, this seems to have little to do with the main thrust of how we make choices, which was the subject of the post that you replied to.

Cheers

It's not so much my interpretation of 'soul', it is more to do with the word origin back closer to the days when the religion started forming.  As DU in post #32809 indicated, the Hebrew word nephesh, translated as 'soul' is associated with life, the word 'soul' has a Germanic origin meaning 'life'.  Its bearing on the subject in hand would be to change your question to 'why on earth is 'life' needed to make a choice when a brain can do the job?' i.e. from a religionists perspective a brain devoid of life (soul) would be incapable of determination.
As regards your comment on the saying, I would think that the 'inner light' is about directing consciousness within as a means of self illumination and clarity.  Ignorance come from the word ignore and so to ignore this opportunity allows an inner darkness to prevail of, say, negative emotions which will influence 'how we make choices'.

[Enki]

It's not so much my interpretation of 'soul', it is more to do with the word origin back closer to the days when the religion started forming.  As DU in post #32809 indicated, the Hebrew word nephesh, translated as 'soul' is associated with life, the word 'soul' has a Germanic origin meaning 'life'.  Its bearing on the subject in hand would be to change your question to 'why on earth is 'life' needed to make a choice when a brain can do the job?' i.e. from a religionists perspective a brain devoid of life (soul) would be incapable of determination.
As regards your comment on the saying, I would think that the 'inner light' is about directing consciousness within as a means of self illumination and clarity.  Ignorance come from the word ignore and so to ignore this opportunity allows an inner darkness to prevail of, say, negative emotions which will influence 'how we make choices'.

Ekim,
I'm sure your etymology is sound and I have no wish to argue about your metaphysics but I was focussing on the brain as the centre of operations as far as our thoughts and decisions are concerned. If the brain ceases to function for whatever reason, my contention would be that thoughts could not take place and decisions could not be made. Whether you call it brain death or a brain devoid of life makes no real difference to me.

As far as your second paragraph is concerned, I don't see a problem. Of course negative emotions can effect decision making, just as positive emotions can. Of course it is possible to control these emotions, to some extent at least, sometimes by mental discipline and reflective thought or perhaps by the use of drugs. I'm not sure why you think this to be so important. As far as I can tell it doesn't alter or add to anything that I've said.

Cheers.

[ekim]

As far as your second paragraph is concerned, I don't see a problem. Of course negative emotions can effect decision making, just as positive emotions can. Of course it is possible to control these emotions, to some extent at least, sometimes by mental discipline and reflective thought or perhaps by the use of drugs. I'm not sure why you think this to be so important. As far as I can tell it doesn't alter or add to anything that I've said.

Cheers.

I think it is important to try to define key religious words like 'soul', 'God', 'spirit' etc. in a religious topic otherwise the discussion will just go round in circles and degenerate into multiple ad homines, just as it has on this topic.

[Enki]

I think it is important to try to define key religious words like 'soul', 'God', 'spirit' etc. in a religious topic otherwise the discussion will just go round in circles and degenerate into multiple ad homines, just as it has on this topic.

Well tell that to AB then. You made the point that I might well have changed a question I raised from why would a 'soul' be needed when a brain can do the job to ''why on earth is 'life' needed to make a choice when a brain can do the job?" Now that may be your understanding of 'soul' but I'm afraid that AB suggests that the only animal which has a 'soul' is the human one. If we take your idea that 'soul' means 'life' then apparently no other animals have this 'life' of yours, according to AB.

Hence, as I was addressing AB's idea of a 'soul' and what it can do(e.g. has the freedom of choice to make decisions) I see no reason to change his preferred word to 'life' because it can become confusing, has the potential to be even more vague and adds nothing to what I have said.

I completely agree that it important to define key words. That is why, if you look back, you will see that I have given dictionary definitions of words such as 'freedom' and 'choice'.

Finally, I am quite sure this discussion will cotinue going round in circles. See my post 31782. However, I do try to show respect as much as possible and do not deliberately try to use ad hominems.

Cheers

[ekim]

Well tell that to AB then. You made the point that I might well have changed a question I raised from why would a 'soul' be needed when a brain can do the job to ''why on earth is 'life' needed to make a choice when a brain can do the job?" Now that may be your understanding of 'soul' but I'm afraid that AB suggests that the only animal which has a 'soul' is the human one. If we take your idea that 'soul' means 'life' then apparently no other animals have this 'life' of yours, according to AB.

Cheers

OK, I have tried before but I am happy to try again even though it's likely to lead to more confusion as both the Hebrew word 'nephesh' and the Greek word 'psyche'  (both translated as 'soul') related to 'life' as the immaterial part or vital principle of man held in common with animals.  So it is now up to Alan to explain his take on 'soul'.

[Alan Burns]

And your 'explanation' is incoherent and self-contradictory.

I'm happy to tackle any argument you put to me about my explanation. In contrast, you keep on running away from tackling any of the many arguments that have been posted that show your 'explanation' is impossible.

But you continue to justify your flawed logic using cleverly chosen words and phrases.
But in doing this you expose the flaws in your logic by aptly demonstrating your freedom to choose those words and phrases.  And the freedom to do this is not explained away by a physically predetermined model.  Your conscious choices are certainly determined by something, but that something cannot be defined within the endless chains of physically predetermined cause and effect events which can have no definitive cause of initiation.  You contend that there is no difference between physical and spiritual, but the obvious difference is that physical events are determined by the laws of physics.  Spiritual events are initiated from outside the laws of physics, which is the source of our freedom to choose.

In the end, nothing can take away my freedom to think, to pray, to bear witness and to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour.

[Stranger]

And round and round and round and round...

But you continue to justify your flawed logic using cleverly chosen words and phrases.

Yet again: you cannot point out an actual flaw...

But in doing this you expose the flaws in your logic by aptly demonstrating your freedom to choose those words and phrases.

Yet again: I have never once denied this freedom.

And the freedom to do this is not explained away by a physically predetermined model.  Your conscious choices are certainly determined by something, but that something cannot be defined within the endless chains of physically predetermined cause and effect events which can have no definitive cause of initiation.

Totally baseless assertions - where is the logic?

You contend that there is no difference between physical and spiritual...

No, I don't. All I claim is that both must be logically self-consistent.

...but the obvious difference is that physical events are determined by the laws of physics.  Spiritual events are initiated from outside the laws of physics, which is the source of our freedom to choose.

Yet again: being "initiated from outside the laws of physics" has no bearing on whether they are entirely due to their causes ('pre'determined) or not (involving some randomness).

In the end, nothing can take away my freedom to think, to pray, to bear witness and to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour.

Yet again: nobody is trying to. You are totally free to believe any self-contradictory nonsense you want...

[Gordon]

But you continue to justify your flawed logic using cleverly chosen words and phrases.
But in doing this you expose the flaws in your logic by aptly demonstrating your freedom to choose those words and phrases.  And the freedom to do this is not explained away by a physically predetermined model.  Your conscious choices are certainly determined by something, but that something cannot be defined within the endless chains of physically predetermined cause and effect events which can have no definitive cause of initiation.  You contend that there is no difference between physical and spiritual, but the obvious difference is that physical events are determined by the laws of physics.  Spiritual events are initiated from outside the laws of physics, which is the source of our freedom to choose.

In the end, nothing can take away my freedom to think, to pray, to bear witness and to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour.

So many fallacies here that I can't be bothered to point them out: meaningless theobabble covers it adequately.

That in your last sentence you admit you are immune to reason is sad, but not at all surprising.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But you continue to justify your flawed logic…

Again, just calling logic “flawed” doesn’t make it so. If you seriously think it to be flawed, then explain why you think that – rebut it using logic that’s more robust than the logic that undoes you rather than rely on mindless assertion and well poisoning.

…using cleverly chosen words and phrases.

That’s pathetic. You seem to think that “clever” is an insult. It isn’t – it just means that a more intelligent mind than your own is capable of martialling arguments you cannot or will not rebut.
 

But in doing this you expose the flaws in your logic by aptly demonstrating your freedom to choose those words and phrases.

As this nonsense has been corrected countless times for you already, what does it say about you do you think that you keep repeating it as if that hadn’t happened at all? You know now why this is wrong – why not then finally at least try to argue against the explanation you’ve been give instead of repeating your original mistake? What are you so afraid of?   

And the freedom to do this is not explained away by a physically predetermined model.

Yes, we know that’s your assertion but – so far at least – you’ve never once managed to provide an argument to demonstrate this wholly unqualified claim to be true. Why not?
 

Your conscious choices are certainly determined by something, but that something cannot be defined within the endless chains of physically predetermined cause and effect events which can have no definitive cause of initiation.

Why not?

You contend that there is no difference between physical and spiritual, but the obvious difference is that physical events are determined by the laws of physics.  Spiritual events are initiated from outside the laws of physics, which is the source of our freedom to choose.

Except of course “spiritual” means only something like, “a word AB uses with no definition, no means of investigation and no reason therefore to think exists at all”. It’s basically the word you use because you realise that “magic” would give the game away, but it fails even for that purpose. “Spiritual” is just a place marker for “it’s magic innit?” and will remain so until and unless you can finally demonstrate that it exists at all.   

In the end, nothing can take away my freedom to think, to pray, to bear witness and to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour.

Thank you for that expression of a superstitious belief you happen to hold. Can you think of even one good reason for anyone else to treat it is anything other than wishful thinking?

Just one?

[Alan Burns]

Thank you for that expression of a superstitious belief you happen to hold. Can you think of even one good reason for anyone else to treat it is anything other than wishful thinking?

Just one?

No blob of physically predetermined material elements could possibly make up a story concerning souls, God and eternal salvation.  In fact physical pre determinism could never be capable of anything other than what can be defined in terms of physically predefined reactions in material elements.

No doubt I will be told that it is all explained by something called "evolution" 

[Stranger]

No blob of physically predetermined material elements could possibly make up a story concerning souls, God and eternal salvation.

Another baseless assertion. How do you know?

In fact physical pre determinism could never be capable of anything other than what can be defined in terms of physically predefined reactions in material elements.

No shit.

No doubt I will be told that it is all explained by something called "evolution" 

It really doesn't matter what the explanation is when your proposed alternative offers no actual explanation at all, is self-contradictory and hence impossible. Rather than endlessly repeating your baseless assertions and personal incredulity, how about growing an intellectual backbone and facing up to the logic?

I guess there's two chances of that.... fat and slim.

[Roses]

No blob of physically predetermined material elements could possibly make up a story concerning souls, God and eternal salvation.  In fact physical pre determinism could never be capable of anything other than what can be defined in terms of physically predefined reactions in material elements.

No doubt I will be told that it is all explained by something called "evolution"

It is all explained by something called "evolution".

[ekim]

In the end, nothing can take away my freedom to think, to pray, to bear witness and to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour.

... except perhaps brain trauma, hypnotic suggestion, narcotics and anaesthetics.

[SusanDoris]

AB

There appears to be a smiley emoticon in one of your posts above. Well, I can assure you that your baseless assertions and the rest of your fallacy-ridden posts are not even remotely funny. It is deeply saddening to see what indoctrination and blind belief have done.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

No blob of physically predetermined material elements…

You seem remarkably proud of parading your ignorance here. What you call a “blob” is in fact a massively complex system. I don’t suppose you’ll ever bother to educate yourself about this, but just to get you started nonetheless:

“The core component of the nervous system in general, and the brain in particular, is the neuron or nerve cell, the “brain cells” of popular language. A neuron is an electrically excitable cell that processes and transmits information by electro-chemical signalling. Unlike other cells, neurons never divide, and neither do they die off to be replaced by new ones. By the same token, they usually cannot be replaced after being lost, although there are a few exceptions.

The average human brain has about 100 billion neurons (or nerve cells) and many more neuroglia (or glial cells) which serve to support and protect the neurons (although see the end of this page for more information on glial cells). Each neuron may be connected to up to 10,000 other neurons, passing signals to each other via as many as 1,000 trillion synaptic connections, equivalent by some estimates to a computer with a 1 trillion bit per second processor. Estimates of the human brain’s memory capacity vary wildly from 1 to 1,000 terabytes (for comparison, the 19 million volumes in the US Library of Congress represents about 10 terabytes of data).”

(http://www.human-memory.net/brain_neurons.html)

Some "blob" eh?

You also by the way utterly fail to grasp the phenomenon of emergence. You seem to think that “predetermined material elements” must act like dominoes knocking each other down in sequence. Emergent properties are nothing like this, something you’d know too if only you bothered to find out about it.

Again I don’t suppose you’ll read it for fear of what you might find out, but try here anyway to get you started:

“An emergent behavior or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviors as a collective. If emergence happens over disparate size scales, then the reason is usually a causal relation across different scales. In other words, there is often a form of top-down feedback in systems with emergent properties.[22] The processes causing emergent properties may occur in either the observed or observing system, and are commonly identifiable by their patterns of accumulating change, generally called 'growth'. Emergent behaviours can occur because of intricate causal relations across different scales and feedback, known as interconnectivity. The emergent property itself may be either very predictable or unpredictable and unprecedented, and represent a new level of the system's evolution. The complex behaviour or properties are not a property of any single such entity, nor can they easily be predicted or deduced from behaviour in the lower-level entities, and might in fact be irreducible to such behavior. The shape and behaviour of a flock of birds [1] or school of fish are good examples of emergent properties.

One reason emergent behaviour is hard to predict is that the number of interactions between a system components increases exponentially with the number of components, thus allowing for many new and subtle types of behaviour to emerge. Emergence is often a product of particular patterns of interaction. Negative feedback introduces constraints that serve to fix structures or behaviours. In contrast, positive feedback promotes change, allowing local variations to grow into global patterns. Another way in which interactions leads to emergent properties is dual-phase evolution. This occurs where interactions are applied intermittently, leading to two phases: one in which patterns form or grow, the other in which they are refined or removed.

On the other hand, merely having a large number of interactions is not enough by itself to guarantee emergent behaviour; many of the interactions may be negligible or irrelevant, or may cancel each other out. In some cases, a large number of interactions can in fact hinder the emergence of interesting behaviour, by creating a lot of "noise" to drown out any emerging "signal"; the emergent behaviour may need to be temporarily isolated from other interactions before it reaches enough critical mass to self-support. Thus it is not just the sheer number of connections between components which encourages emergence; it is also how these connections are organised. A hierarchical organisation is one example that can generate emergent behaviour (a bureaucracy may behave in a way quite different from that of the individual humans in that bureaucracy); but emergent behaviour can also arise from more decentralized organisational structures, such as a marketplace. In some cases, the system has to reach a combined threshold of diversity, organisation, and connectivity before emergent behaviour appears.

Unintended consequences and side effects are closely related to emergent properties. Luc Steels writes: "A component has a particular functionality but this is not recognizable as a subfunction of the global functionality. Instead a component implements a behaviour whose side effect contributes to the global functionality [...] Each behaviour has a side effect and the sum of the side effects gives the desired functionality".(Steels 1990) In other words, the global or macroscopic functionality of a system with "emergent functionality" is the sum of all "side effects", of all emergent properties and functionalities.

Systems with emergent properties or emergent structures may appear to defy entropic principles and the second law of thermodynamics, because they form and increase order despite the lack of command and central control. This is possible because open systems can extract information and order out of the environment.

Emergence helps to explain why the fallacy of division is a fallacy.”

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence#Emergent_properties_and_processes)

…could possibly make up a story concerning souls, God and eternal salvation.  In fact physical pre determinism could never be capable of anything other than what can be defined in terms of physically predefined reactions in material elements.

An extraordinary claim with no argument, no evidence, no anything to support it and overwhelming evidence that tells us it’s probably false. 

No doubt I will be told that it is all explained by something called "evolution"   

No you won’t. Before you get to evolution you need physics and chemistry, but once the conditions are there for evolution to occur then essentially yes. Again you’d know this if only you bothered to find out something about the knowledge you so blithely and routinely dismiss out of hand when it contradicts the various wholly unqualified superstitions you find plausible.

I know you won’t be, but you should be embarrassed by your efforts here. You really should.

Oh, and I note too that as ever you have just ignored the list of rebuttals I posted to your previous wreckage of a post. Telling lies for Jesus again eh?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

You seem remarkably proud of parading your ignorance here. What you call a “blob” is in fact a massively complex system.

But it still entirely comprises physically predetermined activity of material elements, with no viable mechanism for the existence of conscious acts of freewill.

I am reminded of a famous phrase from Dickens -
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free-will, and of my own free-will I wore it"

[Gordon]

But it still entirely comprises physically predetermined activity of material elements, with no viable mechanism for the existence of conscious acts of freewill.

Depends how 'freewill' is defined: and since you define it it terms that require 'God' as a prerequisite I'd say your definition is suspect.

I am reminded of a famous phrase from Dickens -
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free-will, and of my own free-will I wore it"

You'll need to check with Dickens how he defined 'free will' in this story to see if it accords with your definition - let is know how you get on.

He also said 'Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.'

[Stranger]

But it still entirely comprises physically predetermined activity of material elements, with no viable mechanism for the existence of conscious acts of freewill.

Viable mechanism? FFS Alan, your alternative regarding consciousness is the logical equivalent of "it's magic innit" and you definition of free will is self-contradictory.

And yet again: your version of free will falls down because you cannot have an event (choice) that is entirely due to (pre-existing) causes (no randomness) and not entirely due to (pre-existing) causes (not 'pre'determined). It has nothing to do with the physical; your use of the words "physically" and "material" are redundant, as is the "pre" before "determined" (see multiple previous explanations).

And yet again: claiming a choice is determined by the "conscious will" or that the soul is a spiritual cause, makes not a jot of difference to the logic. You can't answer a how question with a what answer.

I am reminded of a famous phrase from Dickens -
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free-will, and of my own free-will I wore it"

You do get that this is fiction....?

[torridon]

In the end, nothing can take away my freedom to think, to pray, to bear witness and to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour.

We could likewise observe that Gabrielle is free to follow Islam, Sriram is free to follow a Hindu path, Ekim to continue being a heretic; trivially true, yes; a female bower bird is free to reject the male's courtship dance if she is not sufficiently impressed with his bower.  The more intelligent thing to do is ask, why.  I don't think the making of a choice is some inscrutable supernatural event; if we dig, we find there are reasons why we chose one way and not the other; there are reasons underlying our state of mind at the moment of making a choice.  Better, I think, to choose understanding over ignorance. A refusal to understand is a poor strategy for life.

[Alan Burns]

We could likewise observe that Gabrielle is free to follow Islam, Sriram is free to follow a Hindu path, Ekim to continue being a heretic; trivially true, yes; a female bower bird is free to reject the male's courtship dance if she is not sufficiently impressed with his bower.  The more intelligent thing to do is ask, why.  I don't think the making of a choice is some inscrutable supernatural event; if we dig, we find there are reasons why we chose one way and not the other; there are reasons underlying our state of mind at the moment of making a choice.  Better, I think, to choose understanding over ignorance. A refusal to understand is a poor strategy for life.

Your post just emphasises our freedom to choose.
And you confirm this observation with your phrase:

Better, I think, to choose understanding over ignorance.

Your materialistic model would deny us the power to consciously make any such choice

[Alan Burns]

... except perhaps brain trauma, hypnotic suggestion, narcotics and anaesthetics.

Which is why we need to make good use of this precious gift while we are still able.

[Alan Burns]

You do get that this is fiction....?

Dickens was a great observer of humanity

[Stranger]

Your post just emphasises our freedom to choose.
And you confirm this observation with your phrase:

Better, I think, to choose understanding over ignorance.

Your materialistic model would deny us the power to consciously make any such choice

Why do you keep lying about this?

Yet again: every single conjecture regarding consciousness and freedom is an attempt to explain our abilities and experiences, claiming that your 'explanation' is the only one that can, or (worse) that they are the same as your 'explanation', is basically lying.

And yet again: you won't face up to the logic that shows that your supposed explanation is self-contradictory...