Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

So anyone who cannot read is not conscious?

Reading is just one example of behaviour which indicates conscious perception as opposed to instinctive reaction.

Monkeys like chimps are capable of conscious perception!

But how can you distinguish unambiguously between instinctive, complex reaction and conscious perception?  Can monkeys and chimps appreciate the beauty of a sunset for example?

[Nearly Sane]

So anyone who cannot read is not conscious?

Reading is just one example of behaviour which indicates conscious perception as opposed to instinctive reaction.

Monkeys like chimps are capable of conscious perception!

But how can you distinguish unambiguously between instinctive, complex reaction and conscious perception?  Can monkeys and chimps appreciate the beauty of a sunset for example?

dunno, can you? Cos my answer to that would be dunno


If you want to make a case here, can I suggest you come up with a definition of conscious perception rather than just randomly throwing up reading and sunsets?

[Alan Burns]

So anyone who cannot read is not conscious?

Reading is just one example of behaviour which indicates conscious perception as opposed to instinctive reaction.

Monkeys like chimps are capable of conscious perception!

But how can you distinguish unambiguously between instinctive, complex reaction and conscious perception?  Can monkeys and chimps appreciate the beauty of a sunset for example?

They might, I don't know. But it matters not, even if conscious perception is only attributable to the human animal, it still doesn't mean any deity is responsible!

My point is that it takes more than physical brain activity to consciously perceive things rather than just react to things.  It is an indication that we are comprised of something more than just physical brain power.

[ekim]

Scientists have actually defined the physical characteristics that enable consciousness and that we share with other animals.

http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf

And some thoughts on it here.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528836.200-animals-are-conscious-and-should-be-treated-as-such.html#.VYz95nCkqrU

Perhaps they should now define the consciousness which enables the physical characteristics and see if we share it with trees.

No more wood flooring then.

That's right, not without a tree certificate of natural death.  In fact I may even set up a Vegetable Rights Group and target vegans and vegetarians and get recognition for the existence of a vegetable soul as per C. S. Lewis.  No more cutting the hearts out of lettuces and exhibiting them in supermarkets; no more hurling sprouts into pots of boiling water; no more chemical weapons of mass destruction; no more genetic experimentation on captive plants.  Now is the time for a real Green Party.  Chlorophyll rules OK.  Turn over a new leaf and join Beanz R Us.  We can cure allotment holders at our Gardeners Anonymous clinics.  Send your donations to our 'Save the Dandelions' fund.  Time is running out, I tell you, as foretold by our prophet John Wyndham .... The Day of the Trifids........ is imminent. 

[torridon]

So anyone who cannot read is not conscious?

Reading is just one example of behaviour which indicates conscious perception as opposed to instinctive reaction.

Monkeys like chimps are capable of conscious perception!

But how can you distinguish unambiguously between instinctive, complex reaction and conscious perception?  Can monkeys and chimps appreciate the beauty of a sunset for example?

Hundreds of posts further on, and you're still floundering around misunderstanding basic terminology. All higher animals have conscious perception. Any animal without it would be dead in no time at all. Conscious perception is about the rendering of sensory data captured with perceptual systems into our stream of conscious experience. Any animal that is awake is conscious and is having conscious experience, by definition. Its nothing to do with higher function such as reading or a sense of aesthetics.

[Rhiannon]

I once spoke to a woman who spent a lot of time volunteering to look after children with very serious disabilities. She used to sing praise songs with them and although they couldn't communicate she told me she was certain that they were conscious of God's love for them.

But according to Alan, they weren't.

The deity loved them so much it allowed them to have serious disabilities!

Well I don't know what this woman believed. She may be in the 'don't know' camp like Welby or the 'God does what he can but can't intervene' slightly liberal camp.

But Alan seems to think disabilities have been designed. He certainly believes in a god powerful enough to switch them off.

[Brownie]

The disabled have  a very positive role to play in our society.  They bring out love in others they didn't know they had.  Frequently they do useful jobs and cheer everyone up. They need our protection and love.

As for singing praise songs with them, if they like it fine.  They are presumably not forced to participate.

I can see God in the faces and actions of others sometimes.
God is a mystery anyway.

[ippy]

It's obvious to me that when this Alan B goes into his own version/idea of,  of "god world" he abandons all sense of reason whenever he puts whatever is left of his mind there.

ippy

[BashfulAnthony]

It's obvious to me that when this Alan B goes into his own version/idea of,  of "god world" he abandons all sense of reason whenever he puts whatever is left of his mind there.

ippy

No need to be so unpleasant.

[Rhiannon]

The disabled have  a very positive role to play in our society.  They bring out love in others they didn't know they had.  Frequently they do useful jobs and cheer everyone up. They need our protection and love.

As for singing praise songs with them, if they like it fine.  They are presumably not forced to participate.

I can see God in the faces and actions of others sometimes.
God is a mystery anyway.

These were children completely 'shut in', or so she said - unable to walk, communicate, often deaf or blind or both. 

I agree that people with disabilities often bring out the best in people, although not always. But having known two families with children with disabilities similar to those I describe, the amount of hardship and suffering it brings is enormous, in spite of the love. It impacts on siblings, marriages, the health of parents and carers. Both families I know had to move home and all their children move schools. One child has a twin who is completely well, the other is disabled due to medical negligence. Both of these give the parents huge sadness.

And I could be writing about my own daughter were it not for the diligence of the obstetrician on duty the night she was born. Although she was not breathing when born, had to be resuscitated and had a collapsed lung as a consequence, had organs not working and an abnormal brain scan due to oxygen deprivation, somehow, she made a full recovery. I look at my beautiful, clever daughter every day in wonder at what could have been. And I find it very, very difficult to square the suffering others have had to endure with an omnipotent loving creator God.

[Alan Burns]

But Alan seems to think disabilities have been designed. He certainly believes in a god powerful enough to switch them off.

I believe in God.
I do not presume to know presiceley what He can and can't do.
I do know that He has the power to deliver us from evil and offer us eternal salvation.

[Shaker]

Your third paragraph contradicts the second, Alan.

I'm sure I need hardly remind you of your habitually incorrect use of the word know.

[ippy]

It's obvious to me that when this Alan B goes into his own version/idea of,  of "god world" he abandons all sense of reason whenever he puts whatever is left of his mind there.

ippy

No need to be so unpleasant.

When looking at the news today another load of extreemism, I'm sure I have seen some more of this extreemism expressed somewhere, was it on this thread?
 
Religious extreemism is unpleasant.

Ippy

[BashfulAnthony]

It's obvious to me that when this Alan B goes into his own version/idea of,  of "god world" he abandons all sense of reason whenever he puts whatever is left of his mind there.

ippy

No need to be so unpleasant.

When looking at the news today another load of extreemism, I'm sure I have seen some more of this extreemism expressed somewhere, was it on this thread?
 
Religious extreemism is unpleasant.

Ippy

Are you seriously equating Alan B's views with the vile murderous extremes we have seen today?  If so, apologise.  If not, what the heck are you talking about? 

[ippy]

It's obvious to me that when this Alan B goes into his own version/idea of,  of "god world" he abandons all sense of reason whenever he puts whatever is left of his mind there.

ippy

No need to be so unpleasant.

When looking at the news today another load of extreemism, I'm sure I have seen some more of this extreemism expressed somewhere, was it on this thread?
 
Religious extreemism is unpleasant.

Ippy

Are you seriously equating Alan B's views with the vile murderous extremes we have seen today?  If so, apologise.  If not, what the heck are you talking about?

Are you being serious B A?

ippy

[BashfulAnthony]

It's obvious to me that when this Alan B goes into his own version/idea of,  of "god world" he abandons all sense of reason whenever he puts whatever is left of his mind there.

ippy

No need to be so unpleasant.

When looking at the news today another load of extreemism, I'm sure I have seen some more of this extreemism expressed somewhere, was it on this thread?
 
Religious extreemism is unpleasant.

Ippy

Are you seriously equating Alan B's views with the vile murderous extremes we have seen today?  If so, apologise.  If not, what the heck are you talking about?

Are you being serious B A?

ippy

Yes.

[Leonard James]

The disabled have  a very positive role to play in our society.  They bring out love in others they didn't know they had.  Frequently they do useful jobs and cheer everyone up. They need our protection and love.

I'm sure that many of them are less than happy with their disability, and would prefer to be without them.

As for singing praise songs with them, if they like it fine.  They are presumably not forced to participate.

But they are forced to suffer their disability, aren't they, and that is far more important than singing in chorus.

I can see God in the faces and actions of others sometimes.
God is a mystery anyway.

This is the sort of unctuous rot that does Christianity no good.

[torridon]

I can see God in the faces and actions of others sometimes.

All that means, is that you recognise the outward behavioural signs of people with similar beliefs and values. I feel no need to add some spooky overlay on top of that like you clearly do although I accept that for many, this is an enriching way of adding an extra layer of interpretive meaning to their experience of life.

I guess also that for some, this is more than just a habit of mind, it may be an indicator of profound cognitive bias. Consider this : sometimes if we stare at a patterned carpet and let our eyes defocus and relax, sooner or later we see a face in the carpet.  This is because we are so tuned up to recognise human faces that we end up sometimes seeing them where they aren't.  Cognitive bias.  I think some people see God everywhere because of a similar subliminal mechanism of a highly God-oriented mind. For me, though, I accept that there aren't people really trapped inside my carpet, ie I recognise my own bias and discount it through the application of broader logic.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I can see God in the faces and actions of others sometimes.

All that means, is that you recognise the outward behavioural signs of people with similar beliefs and values. I feel no need to add some spooky overlay on top of that like you clearly do although I accept that for many, this is an enriching way of adding an extra layer of interpretive meaning to their experience of life.

I guess also that for some, this is more than just a habit of mind, it may be an indicator of profound cognitive bias. Consider this : sometimes if we stare at a patterned carpet and let our eyes defocus and relax, sooner or later we see a face in the carpet.  This is because we are so tuned up to recognise human faces that we end up sometimes seeing them where they aren't.  Cognitive bias.  I think some people see God everywhere because of a similar subliminal mechanism of a highly God-oriented mind. For me, though, I accept that there aren't people really trapped inside my carpet, ie I recognise my own bias and discount it through the application of broader logic.

God as stripey carpet........whatever next?
Have you tested your own theory?
Did you spot God in the faces and actions of others.
If not how do you know the analogy is valid?
How do you know there is not a mechanism for filtering out God?
If you did see God what was your reaction?
Also I'm not sure about analogising these little instances of perceptive ephemera with the broad area and question of whether there is a supreme reality and the question ''what's it all about''.
But I've said enough and there is bound to be that little atheists perceptive quirk of alighting on one point out of seven and it being the most trivial.

[torridon]

I can see God in the faces and actions of others sometimes.

All that means, is that you recognise the outward behavioural signs of people with similar beliefs and values. I feel no need to add some spooky overlay on top of that like you clearly do although I accept that for many, this is an enriching way of adding an extra layer of interpretive meaning to their experience of life.

I guess also that for some, this is more than just a habit of mind, it may be an indicator of profound cognitive bias. Consider this : sometimes if we stare at a patterned carpet and let our eyes defocus and relax, sooner or later we see a face in the carpet.  This is because we are so tuned up to recognise human faces that we end up sometimes seeing them where they aren't.  Cognitive bias.  I think some people see God everywhere because of a similar subliminal mechanism of a highly God-oriented mind. For me, though, I accept that there aren't people really trapped inside my carpet, ie I recognise my own bias and discount it through the application of broader logic.

God as stripey carpet........whatever next?
Have you tested your own theory?
Did you spot God in the faces and actions of others.
If not how do you know the analogy is valid?
How do you know there is not a mechanism for filtering out God?
If you did see God what was your reaction?
Also I'm not sure about analogising these little instances of perceptive ephemera with the broad area and question of whether there is a supreme reality and the question ''what's it all about''.
But I've said enough and there is bound to be that little atheists perceptive quirk of alighting on one point out of seven and it being the most trivial.

I think it a mistake to dismiss these 'ephemera' as trivialities, they tell us something about how minds work, something subtle and something profound, they tell us about how belief and expectation can inform our perception of the world around us. I've long been baffled by the what seem to me to be extraordinary claims of believers, that god is real, that they see god everywhere, and this to me suggests a complex phenomenon requiring many explanations and this insight, that our 'preprogramming' for facial recognition results in us actually seeing faces, not just imagining them, is probably the closest I will ever get to understanding the claims of visceral 'experience' of God. 

Here is one of my favourite illusions, the shadowed checkerboard illusion :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion#/media/File:Grey_square_optical_illusion.PNG

The squares A and B are actually the same colour, but we all experience them as different shades of grey. This shows how our expectations and beliefs inform our perception. We actually see what we believe or expect to be true, even if it evidently false.

[Alan Burns]

And I find it very, very difficult to square the suffering others have had to endure with an omnipotent loving creator God.

But just look at how God answers this in the book of Job.  On earth we see just a tiny fragment of the whole picture of creation.  It is equivalent to passing judgement on the author of "Lord of the Rings" by just reading a single paragraph about Frodo and Sam in the depths of Mordor.  We are unaware of the start game and the end.  We just have this tiny snippet of life on earth, and the Devil will tempt us to base all our judgements on this, but God asks us to trust him, keep faith and know that all will be well.

[Alan Burns]

Hundreds of posts further on, and you're still floundering around misunderstanding basic terminology. All higher animals have conscious perception. Any animal without it would be dead in no time at all. Conscious perception is about the rendering of sensory data captured with perceptual systems into our stream of conscious experience. Any animal that is awake is conscious and is having conscious experience, by definition. Its nothing to do with higher function such as reading or a sense of aesthetics.

I am just highlighting the huge difference between the consciousness we observe in animals to our own conscious perception of the world around us.  Animals seem to perceive and react to the things they need, as you would expect in the biologically driven brain, but human perception goes much deeper.

[wigginhall]

I can see God in the faces and actions of others sometimes.

All that means, is that you recognise the outward behavioural signs of people with similar beliefs and values. I feel no need to add some spooky overlay on top of that like you clearly do although I accept that for many, this is an enriching way of adding an extra layer of interpretive meaning to their experience of life.

I guess also that for some, this is more than just a habit of mind, it may be an indicator of profound cognitive bias. Consider this : sometimes if we stare at a patterned carpet and let our eyes defocus and relax, sooner or later we see a face in the carpet.  This is because we are so tuned up to recognise human faces that we end up sometimes seeing them where they aren't.  Cognitive bias.  I think some people see God everywhere because of a similar subliminal mechanism of a highly God-oriented mind. For me, though, I accept that there aren't people really trapped inside my carpet, ie I recognise my own bias and discount it through the application of broader logic.

God as stripey carpet........whatever next?
Have you tested your own theory?
Did you spot God in the faces and actions of others.
If not how do you know the analogy is valid?
How do you know there is not a mechanism for filtering out God?
If you did see God what was your reaction?
Also I'm not sure about analogising these little instances of perceptive ephemera with the broad area and question of whether there is a supreme reality and the question ''what's it all about''.
But I've said enough and there is bound to be that little atheists perceptive quirk of alighting on one point out of seven and it being the most trivial.

I think it a mistake to dismiss these 'ephemera' as trivialities, they tell us something about how minds work, something subtle and something profound, they tell us about how belief and expectation can inform our perception of the world around us. I've long been baffled by the what seem to me to be extraordinary claims of believers, that god is real, that they see god everywhere, and this to me suggests a complex phenomenon requiring many explanations and this insight, that our 'preprogramming' for facial recognition results in us actually seeing faces, not just imagining them, is probably the closest I will ever get to understanding the claims of visceral 'experience' of God. 

Here is one of my favourite illusions, the shadowed checkerboard illusion :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion#/media/File:Grey_square_optical_illusion.PNG

The squares A and B are actually the same colour, but we all experience them as different shades of grey. This shows how our expectations and beliefs inform our perception. We actually see what we believe or expect to be true, even if it evidently false.

I think another issue is the different understanding of 'God'.  I have thought about this a lot, and there seem to be at least five which exist.   1.  Some Christians seem to have a sense of a separate being, super-powerful, who may or may not intervene.   So this is like Superman.  2.  Then in classical theism, there is the idea that God is being itself.  This is rather obscure, but it is not 'personalistic'.  3.  Then there are ideas like Brahman, which is a kind of unity behind all the diversity.  4.  Somehow connected with this is the idea of the non-dual, in some Eastern religions, where the separateness between you and everything else, falls away.  5.  Then some people think in terms of local gods, as in the tree or the river.   

One problem is that Christianity tends to embrace (1), but you do find also (2) and even elements of (4), for example, in the mystics.  I find (1) baffling, but I can sort of see something in the others.  A poet like Rumi expresses some of these.  Of course, searching it in itself paradoxical, since it will tend to estrange you even further, since you have reified yourself as 'searcher' or 'thinker'. 

[Ricky Spanish]

If Jesus/God wants to have a chat with me, I'm open for that, why aren't they?

[Ricky Spanish]

Plenty of you nutters claim to be in direct contact with their god.. or is that just the sass?

Either way, let them know  I'm up for a chat if they are... they know where I live..