Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

LOGIC

It simply doesn't Alan. Where is the logical reasoning? What are the premisses and what are the logical steps? You don't seem to have the first clue about how a logical argument is constructed.

[Stranger]

I have never denied the concept of cause and effect.

Oh, do stop playing silly games with words! Unless you're seriously stupid you know exactly what I mean. It seems to be a tactic of yours that whenever you are argued into a corner, you simply pretend that the words used are something you've "never denied".

You've tried it with "deterministic" and "all the events that led up to it" and so on - it's dishonest and/or stupid.

You have given us no "LOGIC" that says that an act of "human will" or "conscious effort" cannot also be what you describe as "controlled by the inevitable uncontrollable physically predetermined reactions in a material brain" - of course "uncontrollable" and "predetermined" are inaccurate and the "material brain" is a dishonest distraction from the logical argument against you, but the fact remains that you keep on asserting that they cannot be the same without any hint of a logical justification. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But the obvious…

Stop right there. Lots of things that are “obvious” turn out not to be obvious at all. That’s your big mistake (admittedly from a crowded field of big mistakes). What’s “obvious” at a superficial, experiential, “that’ll do for an explanation provided I never bother actually to think about it” level will very often let you down as a functional explanation when reason and logic are brought to bear.

"It’s “obvious” that your fingers touch the keys" is an example of the same mistake that’s been explained to you many times already only for you never, ever to address the basic principle that the superficially obvious often turns out to be very wrong indeed when you rely on it for an explanation for what’s really happening.     

…conscious effort you put into making this reply proves beyond any doubt that you are not controlled by the inevitable uncontrollable physically predetermined reactions in a material brain.

Bullshit. All it “proves” is that you’re so dishonest that you will never, ever have the basic decency to address the problems your folkloric superficiality gives you the moment actual reasoning is brought to bear.

[bluehillside Retd.]

"Crashes and" Burns,

LOGIC

And yet any attempt you've ever made at a logical argument to justify your beliefs has collapsed immediately into a car crash disaster of illogicality, irrelevance or flat out gibberish.

I have genuinely never encountered anyone as estranged from logic as you, and for you actually to pray in aid logic to support you is Alice in Wonderland level bonkers. Seriously, if ever you want to presume to have logic on your side AT THE VERY LEAST BOTHER TO FIND OUT WHAT LOGIC ENTAILS FIRST.

Dear god man, even for you there must be some inkling at least of how lost you are here. Something? Anything at all?

[Alan Burns]

From which you are clearly estranged.

evidence from my lifetime achievements would indicate otherwise

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

evidence from my lifetime achievements would indicate otherwise

Evidence from your countless attempts here at logical argument that are logically flat wrong confirms it.

[Nearly Sane]

evidence from my lifetime achievements would indicate otherwise

Linus Pauling

[torridon]

The notion that conscious will can be its own cause is a nonsense.  Can you really not understand the circularity in that position ?  If we want to do things, it is for a reason.

And the reason is conscious human will.

This is totally banal.  Your justification for why human will could be its own cause, is because it is its own cause.  Look Alan, if you are going to write a book about this stuff, you are going to need more depth than that.  Mindless repetition is no form of enlightenment or explanation, no more so than capitalising and bolding LOGIC is some sort of compensation for the absence of actual, real logical reasoning.  Your readers will not be fooled by such naive trickery. 

Something cannot be its own cause, period.  Why did I choose tea rather than coffee ? Because I wanted the tea more, why did I want the tea more, because I wanted to want the tea more, why because I wanted to want to want the tea more - you end up in a self referential loop of internal justification never touching on any of the real reasons that actually led to the choice.  In reality, choice does not work like that, our state of mind in any moment is a consequence of the prior events that led to that state of mind, and we cannot control the past.  Get over it.

[Gordon]

evidence from my lifetime achievements would indicate otherwise

Of course, Alan, of course (or should we be calling you Spock from now on).

[ippy]

Of course, Alan, of course (or should we be calling you Spock from now on).

 Sparky Mk 2!

ippy

[Stranger]

evidence from my lifetime achievements would indicate otherwise

The evidence we actually have direct access to here, tells a very different story. Let's have a look at it.

• You continually fall into well known logical fallacies. Something that suggests that you are unfamiliar with valid and invalid logical structures.
  
  
• You don't often respond to people pointing our these fallacies (except for the occasional assertion that you aren't using incredulity). You never attempt to say why it isn't an instance of the fallacy or why it doesn't apply.
  
  
• You claim to be using sound logic but don't seem to have grasped that this is a technical term that requires an argument to be put in a form where the logical steps and premisses are set out clearly and can be identified and checked.
  
  
• Despite several requests you haven't even attempted to put your argument in that form nor do you seem to have taken advise to look up validity and soundness.
  
  
• You never really engage with counterarguments and are endlessly repeating the same "points" often using the same wording.

Now 1 and 3 imply ignorance, and 2, 4, and 5 imply arrogance or complacency.

I have no idea what "lifetime achievements" you are referring to but if you're relying on having studied a "logical" subject such as programming or on an IQ test for mensa, then you've neglected the fact that logical reasoning also requires study and knowledge.

If you've actually studied it (forms of argument, validity and soundness, fallacies, and so on) then you've either forgotten it all or you have been blinded by your faith in this particular subject and are simply not applying what you know.

The evidence that you are not using logic is right here in this thread - repeated over and over and over again.

[Christine]

… Look Alan, if you are going to write a book about this stuff, you are going to need more depth than that.  Mindless repetition is no form of enlightenment or explanation, no more so than capitalising and bolding LOGIC is some sort of compensation for the absence of actual, real logical reasoning.  Your readers will not be fooled by such naive trickery. 

I've read Christian apologetics from folksy nonsense about the trinity living together in a shack to C.S. Lewis (apparently the best available) and unfortunately I think quite a number of readers won't care that the logic is invalid and the arguments specious.  That I've been recommended these inane, childish books in response to clearly expressed and reasonable questions about Christian theology says it all.  The only new recruits they want are ones without the ability to think rationally (and children who can be indoctrinated of course), otherwise it's just patting each other on the back and avoiding hard questions. 

Slightly tangentially, Good Omens (fabulous IMO) skewered Christian "morality" in one short scene of a demon and an angel witnessing preparations for the flood and chatting about it.  Script writers for The Good Place managed to come up with a better arranged afterlife for humans than the Christian God.  It's laughable, or it would be if it didn't blight lives and promote division (a bit like Brexit).

   

[Alan Burns]

The evidence we actually have direct access to here, tells a very different story. Let's have a look at it.

• You continually fall into well known logical fallacies. Something that suggests that you are unfamiliar with valid and invalid logical structures.
  
  
• You don't often respond to people pointing our these fallacies (except for the occasional assertion that you aren't using incredulity). You never attempt to say why it isn't an instance of the fallacy or why it doesn't apply.
  
  
• You claim to be using sound logic but don't seem to have grasped that this is a technical term that requires an argument to be put in a form where the logical steps and premisses are set out clearly and can be identified and checked.
  
  
• Despite several requests you haven't even attempted to put your argument in that form nor do you seem to have taken advise to look up validity and soundness.
  
  
• You never really engage with counterarguments and are endlessly repeating the same "points" often using the same wording.

Now 1 and 3 imply ignorance, and 2, 4, and 5 imply arrogance or complacency.

I have no idea what "lifetime achievements" you are referring to but if you're relying on having studied a "logical" subject such as programming or on an IQ test for mensa, then you've neglected the fact that logical reasoning also requires study and knowledge.

If you've actually studied it (forms of argument, validity and soundness, fallacies, and so on) then you've either forgotten it all or you have been blinded by your faith in this particular subject and are simply not applying what you know.

The evidence that you are not using logic is right here in this thread - repeated over and over and over again.

Luke 10:21 :
“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children."

There is more to life than your highly theoretical view of logic can ever reveal.

[torridon]

Luke 10:21 :
“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children."

There is more to life than your highly theoretical view of logic can ever reveal.

A typical Burnside retreat.  You cannot put up an honest argument based on evidence and reason, so you retreat into slogans and soundbites.  That's never going to cut it.

[Gordon]

Luke 10:21 :
“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children."

There is more to life than your highly theoretical view of logic can ever reveal.

Yet more meaningless theobollocks, Alan.

Just to add, as regards the verse you quote, it would idiocy to praise this 'God' for allegedly revealing knowledge to those without much in the way of critical faculties while also concealing it from who could offer a more robust critical assessment.

Then again, as you so often demonstrate, it isn't just little children whose critical faculties are infantile.       

[Enki]

Luke 10:21 :
“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children."

There is more to life than your highly theoretical view of logic can ever reveal.

Funny that. I have two children. I can honestly say that when they were very young, each one asked me, in their own way, who was this 'God' that they had been told about and where was He? I replied as directly as I could that I couldn't tell them as I had no belief in this 'God', but that it was up to them and no one else as to whether they should believe in Him.
They are both now grown up and have led, as far as I can tell, decent and fulfilling lives. Neither has any belief or interest in this 'God' at all.

If this God of yours actually exists, then it's a case of a total fail when it comes to my children.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Luke 10:21 :
“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children."

There is more to life than your highly theoretical view of logic can ever reveal.

Your behaviour here really is contemptible sometimes. Stranger set out perfectly clearly where you so often go wrong, but rather than engage with any of it you just post a piece of mindless faith sharing and then poison the well with pejorative language. He doesn’t have a “highly theoretical” view of logic at all – rather he’s referring to well understood, everyday, common-or-garden logical arguments that are applied the world over to good practical effect, but that you just crash through over and over again.

Each time you collapse into logical fallacy and have that explained to you, own the problem. Actually address the issue you’ve given yourself either by counter-arguing to show that your argument isn’t fallacious after all, or withdraw it and don’t try the same mistake again. Your behaviour of just ignoring the problem and throwing mindless assertions behind you as you make your retreat does you no credit at all. 

Didn’t your hero Jesus have something to say about bearing false witness?

[Stranger]

Luke 10:21 :
“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children."

What a nasty, small-minded, arbitrarily cruel, and evil little god you serve.

There is more to life than your highly theoretical view of logic can ever reveal.

That's not really the point, is it? It is you who have repeatedly claimed (most recently in large bold letters) that logic is on your side and yet when you're confronted with what that actually means you claim it is "highly theoretical".

For fuck's sake, you are trying to argue about the philosophy of free-will, what the hell do you think "logic" would mean in that context, if not actual, properly structured arguments? It's not even a specialised meaning, just look in a dictionary: logic - Reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity. What in earth did you think was going on when people pointed out your numerous fallacies?

Are you really so far out of your intellectual depth that you think "logic" just means what you happen to regard as "reasonable" (in this case obviously based on incredulity and blind faith)?

As I pointed out in my last post, your approach here implies that you are both ignorant (of what logic actually entails) and arrogant and/or complacent - that really isn't a great look if you're trying to win people over to your point of view...

[Alan Burns]

….  just look in a dictionary: logic - Reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity.

But your dictionary definition aptly shows the dilemma within your view that human free will is a logical impossibility.
Without the freedom to consciously control and direct our thought processes, how can you possibly "conduct or assess anything according to the strict principles of validity" ?
Torridon and Bluehillside have somehow managed to conclude that our apparently consciously controlled choices are predetermined by subconscious brain activity before we are consciously aware of them.  But how they can achieve such a conclusion outside conscious awareness beggars belief.

Human free will may well be deemed to be a logical impossibility when viewed from the confines of a materialistic cause and effect scenario, but without such freedom there could be no possibility of conducting any logical analysis.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But your dictionary definition aptly shows the dilemma within your view that human free will is a logical impossibility.
Without the freedom to consciously control and direct our thought processes, how can you possibly "conduct or assess anything according to the strict principles of validity" ?
Torridon and Bluehillside have somehow managed to conclude that our apparently consciously controlled choices are predetermined by subconscious brain activity before we are consciously aware of them.  But how they can achieve such a conclusion outside conscious awareness beggars belief.

Human free will may well be deemed to be a logical impossibility when viewed from the confines of a materialistic cause and effect scenario, but without such freedom there could be no possibility of conducting any logical analysis.

What the hell is wrong with you? If you want anyone to take your unqualified assertions seriously then you need to provide some reasons to justify these beliefs. And every reason you’ve attempted so far to do that has been categorically wrong.

Take a deep breath, step back from your ignorant certainties and try – finally, actually try – to grasp that the logic you keep mangling concerns in the first place your justification for your a priori beliefs. The reason no-one here possessed of a functioning intellect will take you seriously is that your reasons for that justification are all false.

I have no idea whether you have any reasons at all that are logically sound to validate your beliefs (though it seems very unlikely that you do) but unless you ever manage to produce even one of them you must expect to continue to have your frankly bizarre assertions dismissed out of hand.

[Gordon]

But your dictionary definition aptly shows the dilemma within your view that human free will is a logical impossibility.
Without the freedom to consciously control and direct our thought processes, how can you possibly "conduct or assess anything according to the strict principles of validity" ?
Torridon and Bluehillside have somehow managed to conclude that our apparently consciously controlled choices are predetermined by subconscious brain activity before we are consciously aware of them.  But how they can achieve such a conclusion outside conscious awareness beggars belief.

Human free will may well be deemed to be a logical impossibility when viewed from the confines of a materialistic cause and effect scenario, but without such freedom there could be no possibility of conducting any logical analysis.

Utter pish (for all the reasons given in numerous previous posts by various others here).

[Stranger]

Back to the mindless, dishonest, reasoning- and logic-free script...

But your dictionary definition aptly shows the dilemma within your view that human free will is a logical impossibility.
Without the freedom to consciously control and direct our thought processes, how can you possibly "conduct or assess anything according to the strict principles of validity" ?

Dishonest misrepresentation. Nobody is denying our ability to think and reason. Your phrase "consciously control and direct our thought processes" is both logically irrelevant and all but meaningless.

Torridon and Bluehillside have somehow managed to conclude that our apparently consciously controlled choices are predetermined by subconscious brain activity before we are consciously aware of them.  But how they can achieve such a conclusion outside conscious awareness beggars belief.

The role of consciousness is both unknown (although it's obviously not as significant and totally in control as you seem to think) and logically irrelevant.

Human free will may well be deemed to be a logical impossibility when viewed from the confines of a materialistic cause and effect scenario, but without such freedom there could be no possibility of conducting any logical analysis.

More dishonest misrepresentation. As has been pointed out countless times before, the logic of the situation has nothing to do with the material world. Either our choices are entirely due to all the chains of reasons that led up to them, or not. If not, then some ingredient of the choice is for none of the reasons that led up to it and is therefore random. Materialism has bugger all to do with it.

For fuck's sake, do you have no shame? Are you really so terrified of facing the real arguments that you have to hide behind this blatant misrepresentation and vacuous assertion?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

What the hell is wrong with you? If you want anyone to take your unqualified assertions seriously then you need to provide some reasons to justify these beliefs. And every reason you’ve attempted so far to do that has been categorically wrong.

Take a deep breath, step back from your ignorant certainties and try – finally, actually try – to grasp that the logic you keep mangling concerns in the first place your justification for your a priori beliefs. The reason no-one here possessed of a functioning intellect will take you seriously is that your reasons for that justification are all false.

I have no idea whether you have any reasons at all that are logically sound to validate your beliefs (though it seems very unlikely that you do) but unless you ever manage to produce even one of them you must expect to continue to have your frankly bizarre assertions dismissed out of hand.

And none of this comes close to explaining how you can possibly conduct any meaningful logical analysis if all your choices are predetermined before they enter your conscious awareness.  The short sighted logic put forward removes "you" from the equation.

[Alan Burns]

The role of consciousness is both unknown (although it's obviously not as significant and totally in control as you seem to think) and logically irrelevant.

To claim that consciousness is irrelevant to any logical analysis is truly bizarre!

[Stranger]

And none of this comes close to explaining how you can possibly conduct any meaningful logical analysis if all your choices are predetermined before they enter your conscious awareness.  The short sighted logic put forward removes "you" from the equation.

You're as bad as Boris the Liar, aren't you? This is more misrepresentation. Choices are not predetermined, they are determined by the process of thinking about them and coming to a conclusion. Either that process is operating as a deterministic system or not, and if not, it necessarily involves randomness.

To claim that consciousness is irrelevant to any logical analysis is truly bizarre!

How about you try to logically justify its relevance to the actual argument that has been presented to you?