Searching for GOD...

[SteveH]

Falsify rather than validate, surely.

[Alan Burns]

Sriram,

How?

Your problem incidentally isn't that science dismisses claims of the supernatural, it's that it's indifferent to them. And it has to be that way because those who assert it offer no way to validate the claim with which the methods and tools of science can engage. And the problem with that is that in the absence of any other validating method you can populate the space "supernatural" with anything at all that takes your fancy - gods, djinns, pixies, unicorns, you name it: call it "supernatural" and anything goes.   

Yet you continue to choose to ignore or dismiss the most compelling evidence for the supernatural which is the existence of your own freewill.

[bluehillside Retd.]

SteveH,

Falsify rather than validate, surely.

No. The person who asserts supernatural claim X to be true has the burden of proof to validate his claim. If he chooses to do it with reason or evidence (itself a fool's errand I'd have thought) then his claim can be examined and falsified; if not though, it's his job to provide some other way of validating it.     

[Stranger]

Yet you continue to choose to ignore or dismiss the most compelling evidence for the supernatural which is the existence of your own freewill.

Sorry but your self-contradictory assertions and incredulity are not evidence of anything except your own blind faith and inability to reason logically.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Yet you continue to choose to ignore or dismiss the most compelling evidence for the supernatural which is the existence of your own freewill.

Except of curse that your concept of free will is logically impossible for reasons that have been explained to you by my calculation 7,357,912 times already but that you always ignore, misrepresent or distract from. I assume that you're compelled to this dishonesty because contemplating the likelihood that your "most compelling evidence" is nonsense would undermine a personal faith belief that's vitally important to you.     

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Yet you continue to choose to ignore or dismiss the most compelling evidence for the supernatural which is the existence of your own freewill.

I would say the most compelling arguments for the supernatural he is ignoring is the one he is inevitably bound to...........namely that nature either popped out of nothing or that it is eternal.

[Stranger]

I would say the most compelling arguments for the supernatural he is ignoring is the one he is inevitably bound to...........namely that nature either popped out of nothing or that it is eternal.

Not only are those not the only options (they are quaintly Newtonian) but even if they were the only ones we could think of, they aren't evidence of the supernatural.

The existence of a mystery doesn't make anybody's favourite baseless story any more believable...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Not only are those not the only options (they are quaintly Newtonian) but even if they were the only ones we could think of, they aren't evidence of the supernatural.

The existence of a mystery doesn't make anybody's favourite baseless story any more believable...

Name the other options......at least two.

Tell us where we can observe a universe popping out of nothing.

Tell us where we can observe something which is eternal and that is natural.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Except of curse that your concept of free will is logically impossible for reasons that have been explained to you by my calculation 7,357,912 times already but that you always ignore, misrepresent or distract from. I assume that you're compelled to this dishonesty because contemplating the likelihood that your "most compelling evidence" is nonsense would undermine a personal faith belief that's vitally important to you.   

But what is it that is logically impossible?

I perceive that every letter you consciously chose to type in this reply could not possibly have been predetermined before you were consciously aware of it.   Why can't you accept the obvious that it is your own conscious awareness which chooses?

In your replies, you continue to demonstrate the conscious freedom to choose which you deem to be a logical impossibility.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But what is it that is logically impossible?

Just stop it now, You know exactly what it is because it's been explained to you countless times: the only way you have out of the binary determined vs random options is "it's magic", which is epistemologically worthless. 

I perceive that every letter you consciously chose to type in this reply could not possibly have been predetermined before you were consciously aware of it.   Why can't you accept the obvious that it is your own conscious awareness which chooses?

In your replies, you continue to demonstrate the conscious freedom to choose which you deem to be a logical impossibility.

Because your "perception" has no more explanatory value than countless other perceptions that are also wrong have explanatory value. If you were capable or willing to think at anything other than the most superficial level you would know that. 

[Alan Burns]

Sorry but your self-contradictory assertions and incredulity are not evidence of anything except your own blind faith and inability to reason logically.

Yet you have consistently failed to give any plausible explanation for the definitive causal events from which my apparently deliberate assertions and incredulity arise.

[Alan Burns]

If you were capable or willing to think at anything other than the most superficial level you would know that.

And what precisely would it be that is capable of "willing"?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Yet you have consistently failed to give any plausible explanation for the definitive causal events from which my apparently deliberate assertions and incredulity arise.

First, “definitive causal events” is just a notion you’ve made up. If you wanted to trace cause and effect as far back as it goes (if there even is such a thing) you’d have to take into account an unfathomably vast number of interacting events occurring over unfathomably vast periods of time.   

Second, you’re just re-hashing yet again your basic mistake of arguing from personal incredulity. Whatever our state of ignorance about casual events that takes you not one step toward “it must be god then” as a means of filling the gaps. No matter the consistent wreckage of your attempts to make an argument for your beliefs, surely even you can see this can’t you?

Can’t you?     

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

And what precisely would it be that is capable of "willing"?

The perception of self you have that collapses as an explanation for what's actually going on under the bonnet the minute you bother to think about it. Or at least it would if you ever did bother to think about it. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Sam Harris again on the illusion of self and on the obduracy of those who won't think about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t_Uyi9bNS4

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB,

Sam Harris again on the illusion of self and on the obduracy of those who won't think about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t_Uyi9bNS4

Typical new atheist intro.

Ive alreadt argued

Did you Sam? When was this?

[torridon]

Yet you continue to choose to ignore or dismiss the most compelling evidence for the supernatural which is the existence of your own freewill.

Your claim of something logically impossible is not evidence for the supernatural, it is evidence that you are WRONG

[torridon]

And what precisely would it be that is capable of "willing"?

That would be you.  Nothing magical about being willing.  Happens all the time.

[Sriram]

Sriram,

How?

Your problem incidentally isn't that science dismisses claims of the supernatural, it's that it's indifferent to them. And it has to be that way because those who assert it offer no way to validate the claim with which the methods and tools of science can engage. And the problem with that is that in the absence of any other validating method you can populate the space "supernatural" with anything at all that takes your fancy - gods, djinns, pixies, unicorns, you name it: call it "supernatural" and anything goes.   

I was referring to a driverless car. You know how!

[torridon]

The driverless car again!  Haven't we discussed this many times?!   

In fact, that adds to my point.  The 'Self' can be quite remote and still manage to drive the vehicle. 

Similarly, the Higher Self can be quite removed from the body (in a physical spatial sense).  But it could still be controlling everything that is happening. The Unconscious mind and Chalmers ideas are relevant here.

The ego self is another matter.  That is the sense of self or self awareness that is built into our minds as we grow in childhood. This is the self that is the illusion.

Well it was you that brought the cars analogy up, not me 

I'm sure you must know by now that my driverless car analogy is much truer to observation than your strange presentation of a driver being distinct from the car.  When the AI in driverless cars approaches human levels of sophistication, then the concept of a car needing a separate driver will become redundant and your analogy will be revealed as lacking in depth of understanding.  The self is an emergent mental aspect of the organism not something separate parachuted into it by some unknown mechanism or inhabiting it and controlling by some unknown mechanism.  Nothing in Chalmers or Freud or pansychism or neuroscience or psychology supports the notion of a self being independent or remote from the body that is identifies as.

[wigginhall]

That would be you.  Nothing magical about being willing.  Happens all the time.

AB follows a kind of grammatical fallacy.  Because we say "I am willing", or "I want", therefore for AB, there must be something doing the willing.  Russell reminded me of this in his comments about the cogito, "there is no datum".  Grammar is different from ontology.

[Sriram]

Well it was you that brought the cars analogy up, not me 

I'm sure you must know by now that my driverless car analogy is much truer to observation than your strange presentation of a driver being distinct from the car.  When the AI in driverless cars approaches human levels of sophistication, then the concept of a car needing a separate driver will become redundant and your analogy will be revealed as lacking in depth of understanding.  The self is an emergent mental aspect of the organism not something separate parachuted into it by some unknown mechanism or inhabiting it and controlling by some unknown mechanism.  Nothing in Chalmers or Freud or pansychism or neuroscience or psychology supports the notion of a self being independent or remote from the body that is identifies as.

I bring up the car (or robot) analogy to highlight the distinction of the Self from the physical entity.  You bring up the driverless car analogy claiming that this somehow  eliminates the idea of a separate self.  I don't think it does. In fact, the driverless car analogy only highlights the possibility of the Self being more remote than in the normal car.   

I have many times brought up the possibility of an accident caused by the driverless car. Who will be held responsible? The idea of someone being responsible for the car doesn't go away.

You are merely making an assertion ....'The self is an emergent mental aspect of the organism not something separate'.  It is not necessarily true.


 

[Stranger]

But what is it that is logically impossible?

How many more times?

If some choice is not entirely due to all its antecedents, then, to the extent that it isn't, it is for no reason at all - which means that it's, to that extent, random. You can't have something that is not fully due to its causes (not 'pre'determined) and yet fully due to its causes (no randomness) at the same time.

[Stranger]

Yet you have consistently failed to give any plausible explanation for the definitive causal events from which my apparently deliberate assertions and incredulity arise.

I, and the others here, have done a great deal better than you, who is basically saying "it's magic, innit" and then adding a logical contradiction for good measure.

[Sebastian Toe]

Tell us where we can observe something which is eternal and that is natural.

If the universe is eternal, then does it not follow that eternal is natural?