Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

It’s very odd I find, and about as far removed from actually thinking as I can imagine.           

My thinking is quite simple.
I can think of no possible way in which our conscious awareness and freedom of thought can be generated from predetermined, uncontrollable physical reactions to previous physically predefined events.

I therefore conclude that our conscious awareness and freedom to think are evidence of activity originating from something other than predetermined physically controlled reactions to previous predefined physical events.

[Stranger]

My thinking is quite simple.

So it seems.

I can think of no possible way in which our conscious awareness and freedom of thought can be generated from predetermined, uncontrollable physical reactions to previous physically predefined events.

Personal incredulity.

I therefore conclude that our conscious awareness and freedom to think are evidence of activity originating from something other than predetermined physically controlled reactions to previous predefined physical events.

Totally ignoring the fact that positing something other than the physical in no way helps with the logical problem that if things are not entirely the result of what led up to them, then, to some extent, they are not due to anything that led to them and so must, to that extent, be random.

[BeRational]

My thinking is quite simple.
I can think of no possible way in which our conscious awareness and freedom of thought can be generated from predetermined, uncontrollable physical reactions to previous physically predefined events.

I therefore conclude that our conscious awareness and freedom to think are evidence of activity originating from something other than predetermined physically controlled reactions to previous predefined physical events.

Were people justified in concluding the Earth is flat for the same sort of reason?
The logical fallacy of personal incredulity.

[torridon]

My thinking is quite simple.
..

Clearly, and that is the problem.  Reality is not simple.  How things seem, superficially, is not how they are, fundamentally.  You are still thinking exclusively at the level of insisting that physics must be wrong because apples feel solid.

[BeRational]

AB

When you look across the room to the other side, are you seeing it as it is now or as it was slightly in the past.

We know how it seems, but we also know that that feeling is  wrong

[Gordon]

My thinking is quite simple.

You can say that again.

I can think of no possible way in which our conscious awareness and freedom of thought can be generated from predetermined, uncontrollable physical reactions to previous physically predefined events.

That will be due to your chronic personal incredulity.

I therefore conclude that our conscious awareness and freedom to think are evidence of activity originating from something other than predetermined physically controlled reactions to previous predefined physical events.

Since your conclusions derive from your fondness for fallacies I don't think we need take them seriously.

[Sebastian Toe]

AB

When you look across the room to the other side, are you seeing it as it is now or as it was slightly in the past.

We know how it seems, but we also know that that feeling is  wrong

Quite.
The light has to travel across the room
Then it is gathered by the eye
Then it is sent up the optic nerve to the brain
Then it is processed to an understandable form by the brain
...pause for exit from reality here....
...then it is "seen" , via a "quantum event", in another dimension, by the "soul".
AB calls that, "the present"!

[ekim]

The two descriptions are at totally different levels of abstraction aren't alternatives to each other. My argument applies directly to any events, including any "choice is to sacrifice 'self'" or "surrender of self will".

I'm not sure what you are deducing from my posting.  Can you be more specific?

[Alan Burns]

Quite.
The light has to travel across the room
Then it is gathered by the eye
Then it is sent up the optic nerve to the brain
Then it is processed to an understandable form by the brain
...pause for exit from reality here....
...then it is "seen" , via a "quantum event", in another dimension, by the "soul".
AB calls that, "the present"!

The brain is a biological machine which is programmed to react to sensory data, but reaction is not perception.  Perception is awareness of information, not reaction to it.  The single entity of perception which is "you" is not definable in terms of material reactions.  This entity of perception can consciously interact with the perceived data, rather than just react to it.  This is what I believe enables the consciously driven freedom we all enjoy.

[BeRational]

The brain is a biological machine which is programmed to react to sensory data, but reaction is not perception.  Perception is awareness of information, not reaction to it.  The single entity of perception which is "you" is not definable in terms of material reactions.  This entity of perception can consciously interact with the perceived data, rather than just react to it.  This is what I believe enables the consciously driven freedom we all enjoy.

But everything you perceive is in the past. When you see you wife at the other end of the room, that is how she was, NOT how she is. Plus the light reaching you eye has to be made into a picture by the brain. The eye is not a camera.
The brain has to edit all the data input and build a world simulation. You cannot see reality!
Everything you think you see, you don't, and what you thought you saw as a little bit in the past. Never NOW.

[Stranger]

I'm not sure what you are deducing from my posting.  Can you be more specific?

I may have misunderstood, but you quoted my argument about determinism or randomness and then went on to "the Christian position" and started talking about "events determined by self considerations" and "the surrender of self will". Those aren't alternatives to things happening deterministically or randomly. You've gone from the most basic, nuts and bolts level, up to motivations and abstract thought. My position is that the latter has to emerge from the former; they aren't alternatives to each other - they are descriptions of the same thing at different levels of abstraction.

This is the essence of the disagreement. Alan can't see how determinism at the basic nuts and bolts level (except when he tries to change the meaning of the word "determinism") can produce our conscious experience of making choices (like a choice to "surrender self will", for example). He's also confusing the logical problem of determinism with the physical world.

[Stranger]

The brain is a biological machine which is programmed to react to sensory data, but reaction is not perception.  Perception is awareness of information, not reaction to it.  The single entity of perception which is "you" is not definable in terms of material reactions.  This entity of perception can consciously interact with the perceived data, rather than just react to it.  This is what I believe enables the consciously driven freedom we all enjoy.

* sigh *

Back to the endless, thought-free repetition of baseless assertions that have been addressed endless times before. Can you actually think at all, let alone deeply? How much thought does it take to realise that people have already given you answers to what you're typing and that you've just ignored them?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

My thinking is quite simple.

Here I find myself in rare agreement.

I can think of no possible way in which our conscious awareness and freedom of thought can be generated from predetermined, uncontrollable physical reactions to previous physically predefined events.

Which is precisely the argument from personal incredulity. You know, the thing I just explained to you and that you’ve ignored in order to repeat exactly the same mistake.

Why on earth would anyone care what you personally can or cannot think of in a discussion about epistemological truth?

I therefore conclude…

What the hell is wrong with you that you can’t even grasp the most basic of logical mistakes? 

…that our conscious awareness and freedom to think are evidence of activity originating from something other than predetermined physically controlled reactions to previous predefined physical events.

That thunder stuff is weird isn’t it. I therefore conclude Thor.

[Sebastian Toe]

The brain is a biological machine which is programmed to react to sensory data, but reaction is not perception.  Perception is awareness of information, not reaction to it.  The single entity of perception which is "you" is not definable in terms of material reactions.  This entity of perception can consciously interact with the perceived data, rather than just react to it.  This is what I believe enables the consciously driven freedom we all enjoy.

Not the point I am making.
Evem if your soul conjecture was actually true, your assertion of you acting in the "present" cannot possibly be true, for the reasons given.
Your "act of free will" has to be due to something which has already passed.

[Alan Burns]

But everything you perceive is in the past. When you see you wife at the other end of the room, that is how she was, NOT how she is. Plus the light reaching you eye has to be made into a picture by the brain. The eye is not a camera.
The brain has to edit all the data input and build a world simulation. You cannot see reality!
Everything you think you see, you don't, and what you thought you saw as a little bit in the past. Never NOW.

What is perceived exists in the past, but your perception of it exists in the present.

[torridon]

What is perceived exists in the past, but your perception of it exists in the present.

That's not strictly correct either.  All forms of perception, audible, visual etc are constructions of mind, not 'real time' 'raw' experience.  Constructions always take time, so our perceptions are always a memory of something happening a moment ago. We never actually live in the present.

[bluehillside Retd.]

torri,

That's not strictly correct either.  All forms of perception, audible, visual etc are constructions of mind, not 'real time' 'raw' experience.  Constructions always take time, so our perceptions are always a memory of something happening a moment ago. We never actually live in the present.

But AB doesn't care about that. Having conjured up a little man at the controls he calls "soul" and placed it carefully in a space he calls "spiritual" none of that matters - in his ontology he can claim anything he likes no matter how irrational because, well, you know....magic. 

That by setting the bar for reason and evidence so low anyone else can claim anything else they like too on exactly the same basis doesn't bother him a jot - or at least if it does he's never bothered to tell us that it does. 

[Stranger]

What is perceived exists in the past, but your perception of it exists in the present.

Any progress with defining what you mean by the "present" so that it has some logical significance with regard to the arguments against you?

At the moment you seem to think it's another magic spell word (like 'spiritual') that somehow means you don't have to consider the actual logic of the situation...

[ekim]

I may have misunderstood, but you quoted my argument about determinism or randomness and then went on to "the Christian position" and started talking about "events determined by self considerations" and "the surrender of self will". Those aren't alternatives to things happening deterministically or randomly. You've gone from the most basic, nuts and bolts level, up to motivations and abstract thought. My position is that the latter has to emerge from the former; they aren't alternatives to each other - they are descriptions of the same thing at different levels of abstraction.

This is the essence of the disagreement. Alan can't see how determinism at the basic nuts and bolts level (except when he tries to change the meaning of the word "determinism") can produce our conscious experience of making choices (like a choice to "surrender self will", for example). He's also confusing the logical problem of determinism with the physical world.

Yes, I think you read more into my comment than was intended.  I was suggesting that from the Christian perspective (although I'm not a Christian) there is no random event, all is determined by God, even Alan's soul.  In this sense, random is a concept invented by the human mind to cover events where God works in mysterious ways and determinism rules eternally.  The God of the Christians does not appear to be a reasoning God, but as a God of Love and Life, an indifferent or disinterested God e.g. He causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on all no matter whether considered good or bad.  Such determinism is more like a radiance or flow which the Christian has to unite with rather than use self determination to fight against.   Here endeth the 2nd Lesson. 

[Alan Burns]

That's not strictly correct either.  All forms of perception, audible, visual etc are constructions of mind, not 'real time' 'raw' experience.  Constructions always take time, so our perceptions are always a memory of something happening a moment ago. We never actually live in the present.

Unless you are a spiritual entity which is not constrained by the physical delays associated with chains cause and effect.

What the soul perceives and what it actuates will always take place in the spiritual present where the soul exists.

[Gordon]

Unless you are a spiritual entity which is not constrained by the physical delays associated with chains cause and effect.

How do you know (as in having knowledge) this?

What the soul perceives and what it actuates will always take place in the spiritual present where the soul exists.

How do you know (as in having knowledge) this?

[Stranger]

Any progress with defining what you mean by the "present" so that it has some logical significance with regard to the arguments against you?

At the moment you seem to think it's another magic spell word (like 'spiritual') that somehow means you don't have to consider the actual logic of the situation...

What the soul perceives and what it actuates will always take place in the spiritual present where the soul exists.

Wow, the "spiritual present", both meaningless magic spell words combined!     

[Alan Burns]

Wow, the "spiritual present", both meaningless magic spell words combined!     

So you choose to consign the words, "spiritual" and "present" to be meaningless.
But both these words have meanings which are well known and well documented.
So what qualifies you to deem them to be meaningless?

Could it be to enable you to believe in your presumption that the terms "physically predetermined" and "freedom to choose" are compatible?

[torridon]

Unless you are a spiritual entity which is not constrained by the physical delays associated with chains cause and effect.

What the soul perceives and what it actuates will always take place in the spiritual present where the soul exists.

You don't 'arf talk some nonsense. A spiritual entity is not constrained by the delays associated with cause and effect ?  Have you any idea what that would mean ? If that were the case, then a soul would experience everything happening at once.  It doesn't feel like that to me, does it to you ?  How would that work ?

[Stranger]

So you choose to consign the words, "spiritual" and "present" to be meaningless.
But both these words have meanings which are well known and well documented.
So what qualifies you to deem them to be meaningless?

They are meaningless in the context you keep using them. The present has an everyday meaning that is logically irrelevant to whether something is fully due to the past or not, and a more concrete meaning that probably means it doesn't actually exist and that certainly isn't compatible with what you keep on saying about it.

I (and others) have pointed this out several times and asked you to clarify what you mean. As usual you've just ignored it and gone on repeating it as if nobody had said anything.

Could it be to enable you to believe in your presumption that the terms "physically predetermined" and "freedom to choose" are compatible?

YET AGAIN: "physically" has nothing to do with the logic you continue to totally ignore. This has been explained endlessly by several posters.

YET AGAIN:  it is obvious that freedom to choose, using the standard dictionary definitions, is compatible with (pre)determinism*.  Your own definitions of the words are not compatible with (pre)determinism* because nothing can possibly be compatible with those because what you describe is self-contradictory nonsense - for reasons that have been explained to you endlessly and which you never bother to directly address.

How many more times do you need this explained before you even acknowledge it enough to stop the pointless repetition? If you disagree, engage with the arguments.

How much thought does it take to realise that "freedom" in the sense you mean it, is neither the standard definition nor the subjective experience, but your proposed "explanation" of the experience?

Just as tiny start, perhaps you could accept that there are different meanings of the word "freedom" in this discussion and try to be clear which you mean in each case? You are free (dictionary definition) to not accept the dictionary definition as "real freedom" if that's what you want to do, but that just means that I don't think freedom (your definition) is even a self-consistent concept.

* No, what you want to believe isn't determinism: #32591 #32601