Searching for GOD...

[Leonard James]

Not so! Evil/good spirits, for example. Pure imagination. Nobody has ever experienced a spirit of any kind.

We don't know that for sure - you can't 'disprove' spirits. We have a level of intelligence and reasoning that it appears other animals don't have, and we've had various hypotheses to explain that. Spirits - disembodied pieces of intelligence - that attach to us but not to them explains that. Not well, and not with evidence, but it explains the available evidence, and leads to immense volumes of Manga... so it's not all bad.

That, to me, can't have a deterministic explanation.

That, I'm afraid, just smacks of the argument from personal incredulity.

Not believing obvious rubbish can hardly be called incredulity. 

And yet, in the absence of any other reasonable explanation, we have determinism. There's no reason this can't come from determinism, you just don't like that conclusion. I don't like the conclusion, either, but that doesn't mean that it's not valid.

O.

[/quote]

See what I mean? Round and round we go! 

[Alan Burns]

Yes that's right.  Decisions originate in subconscious mind, remember ? In high speed situations like F1 the driver has already made a decision and acted on it before he 'knows' that he has made it.  It's your old mate, consciousness lag again.

But this conclusion is based upon research which indicates specific brain activity occuring several seconds before a decision is made.  In the case of an F1 driver the decision to overtake must occur just a fraction of a second before the action to overtake.  A several second lag is just not feasible between the decision and the action.  The driver's awareness of the decision, the observed opportunity and the action must all occur within a fraction of a second.  So the conclusion that the brain makes a subconscious decision seconds prior to the awareness of that decision can't be correct in the case of a F1 driver, or any other car driver for that matter.

[Maeght]

But this conclusion is based upon research which indicates specific brain activity occuring several seconds before a decision is made.  In the case of an F1 driver the decision to overtake must occur just a fraction of a second before the action to overtake.  A several second lag is just not feasible between the decision and the action.  The driver's awareness of the decision, the observed opportunity and the action must all occur within a fraction of a second.  So the conclusion that the brain makes a subconscious decision seconds prior to the awareness of that decision can't be correct in the case of a F1 driver, or any other car driver for that matter.

You've made this point before Alan and myself and others have replied that experienced drivers such those in F1 can look ahead and judge situations based on their previous experiences and their practice, so no over taking decision is made in a fraction of a second but is the result of previous events and the programming of the brain to react to the situation. But as Leonard say - round and round we go .....

[torridon]

But this conclusion is based upon research which indicates specific brain activity occuring several seconds before a decision is made.  In the case of an F1 driver the decision to overtake must occur just a fraction of a second before the action to overtake.  A several second lag is just not feasible between the decision and the action.  The driver's awareness of the decision, the observed opportunity and the action must all occur within a fraction of a second.  So the conclusion that the brain makes a subconscious decision seconds prior to the awareness of that decision can't be correct in the case of a F1 driver, or any other car driver for that matter.

You've not got your head round this I think.  There is no consciousness lag between seeing an opportunity and acting on it. The lag is between subconscious and conscious. The driver is reacting quickly to road conditions, it is his conscious awareness that lags behind. So when Hamilton sees an overtaking opportunity, his subconscious perception of the opportunity is ahead of his conscious perception of it, and likewise with his decision to overtake and his action to overtake, his conscious 'knowledge' of these opportunities/decisions/actions all are following linearly behind by the same lag. 

Some lag is inevitable in conscious experience; whereas simple bioelectrical impulses can travel at high speed up long distance nerve cells to reach the brain, once they meet the tangle of neural networks in your head they slow down immensely, I think a figure of 120m / sec is typical in neural transmission, although different sorts of thoughts travel at very different speeds. It feels like our experience of the world is in real time, instantaneous, but it isn't, we live slightly behind reality.

[Alan Burns]

You've made this point before Alan and myself and others have replied that experienced drivers such those in F1 can look ahead and judge situations based on their previous experiences and their practice, so no over taking decision is made in a fraction of a second but is the result of previous events and the programming of the brain to react to the situation. But as Leonard say - round and round we go .....

I understand what you are saying, but I can still think of examples which contradict these ideas.

Take a child playing on a video "shoot em up" game in an arcade.  With no previous experience of a particular game the child will soon be making the conscious decision to shoot as soon as an opportunity arises.  From my point of view as a watching bystander (parent) there is no noticable lag between the opportunity and the pull of the trigger (unless it is Dad who is playing!)

To parody the famous commentary on a duck,

If it feels like a conscious decision, and if it looks like a conscious decision, then perhaps it is a conscious decision.

[Sassy]

No, I refuse to accept the edited assertions of vested interests documenting alleged eyewitness testimony decades after the alleged events which completely fail to turn up in the records of the other agencies of the time. You don't have evidence you have an highly suspect claim.

How do you know it is edited?


Have you never seen an ancient codex ?

That has absolutely NOTHING to do with the question I asked the other person.

I should mention that had you or he any real knowledge about the bible you would know the written word is not the way the truth is passed on with believers and never was with the Jews.
They learned the truth of by heart and Christians today have the living Gods Spirit to guide them into all truth. Been the same since the day the Spirit was first received by the disciples.


So I will check if I have an answer from the person my question was directed to. Thanks.

[Sassy]

No, I refuse to accept the edited assertions of vested interests documenting alleged eyewitness testimony decades after the alleged events which completely fail to turn up in the records of the other agencies of the time. You don't have evidence you have an highly suspect claim.

How do you know it is edited?
You accept it is edited without any proof. Selective then aren't you and choosing what you believe with or without evidence. It
does not help your argument.
Evidence... I accept Jesus Christ is the Son of God because of personal evidence. You can put his word to the test but the truth will come out that you are not interested if Christ really existed at all. You just don't want to believe. That is fine, it is your choice but don't make excuses such as it is based on evidence or lack of.



We have one way of determining reality which relies on physical evidence. We have other ways of determining things, like logic, which don't rely on physical evidence. If you have a way of reliably determining things like gods then by all means explain it, but until you do it remains in the 'unsubstantiated claims' bucket.

So what physical evidence are you using for millions of GALAXIES in space? Note: Not chocolate bars by the way... even Aero isn't that light. Until you want to review and accept evidence for it's correct purpose you cannot come to know the truth. The truth is you do not want to know the truth about God.


The fact that you don't appear to think for yourself at all, or address reality rather than your magic book is your downfall. The fact that others are like you is both their downfall and, unfortunately, the downfall of innocent bystanders in places like Paris, Beirut, Uganda, Nigeria, it's the inflicting of unnecessary pain and suffering on people in places like India, the US, Malaysia, Pakistan...

Ignorances at it's highest... You cannot make one argument about Christ or God directly can you.
Give up O you show clearly you have never read the bible or reasoned the true concept of God.
All things are possible until proven otherwise... except that it's not often possible to disprove anything.

In reality, nothing needs to be considered until some reliable reason to accept them is given. I don't have to disprove your idea of God any more than you need to disprove all the other ideas of gods - Thor, Ramu, the Earth Mother, Amun-Ra, Ameratsu Omikami, Marduk, Baba-Yaga, Molag-Bal, Quetzalcoatl, Coyote, Olapa, Xenu...

O.


You cannot logically disprove of anything you have no knowledge about. You haven't even the basic knowledge most atheist have. You think you have circled arguments. But the contents where are they? Your arguments are based in ignorance and stringing words and names together which mean absolutely nothing. You lose again...

Any chance of an answer.

[Maeght]

I understand what you are saying, but I can still think of examples which contradict these ideas.

Take a child playing on a video "shoot em up" game in an arcade.  With no previous experience of a particular game the child will soon be making the conscious decision to shoot as soon as an opportunity arises.  From my point of view as a watching bystander (parent) there is no noticable lag between the opportunity and the pull of the trigger (unless it is Dad who is playing!)

'Will soon be' - yes, a simple response quickly learnt by young active minds. I don't think your example demonstrates a conscious decision at all.

To parody the famous commentary on a duck,

If it feels like a conscious decision, and if it looks like a conscious decision, then perhaps it is a conscious decision.

Or perhaps not. We can easily be fooled - optical illusions for example - and so should rely on independent scientific measurements rather than our feelings - and these are starting to show that apparent conscious decisions are taken sub consciously.

The 'shoot 'em up' games seem to me to be a perfect example of a sub conscious reaction rather than an example of conscious decision making as you suggest. There is an element of repetition and prediction going on but also people's reaction times can be very swift - although there is a lag between reacting and being conscious of the reaction. We instinctively react then think we made a conscious decision when we actually didn't - that's what the science is indicating.

[Alan Burns]

The human brain is capable of imagining things that it has never experienced and that have never even happened. Horror fiction is littered with unlikely monsters dreamed up by the authors.

That, to me, can't have a deterministic explanation.

Hi Len,
Just to say that is is good to be arguing on the same side for once 

[Alan Burns]

The 'shoot 'em up' games seem to me to be a perfect example of a sub conscious reaction rather than an example of conscious decision making as you suggest. There is an element of repetition and prediction going on but also people's reaction times can be very swift - although there is a lag between reacting and being conscious of the reaction. We instinctively react then think we made a conscious decision when we actually didn't - that's what the science is indicating.

So you are saying that everything a human does is just a reaction.  Therefore there is nothing in control.  Control does not exist.  Everything is just pre determined reaction.

There can be no halfway house on this.  Either we have control of our actions and words, or we have none.  What you are implying is that every word which has ever been written or spoken is just an uncontrolled reaction.  So perception and awareness have no purpose, since what we perceive has already taken place.

I have no doubt that your uncontrolled reactions will just label my post as personal incredulity, but my controlled reactions will carry on believing in the power of free will.

[Leonard James]

Hi Len,
Just to say that is is good to be arguing on the same side for once 

I am with you 100% that we do have free will, but that free will has limitations. We can't use it to believe something which seems false to us.

[floo]

I am with you 100% that we do have free will, but that free will has limitations. We can't use it to believe something which seems false to us.

Hear! Hear!

[Maeght]

So you are saying that everything a human does is just a reaction.

I think it most likely that everything a human does results from the way the brain is programmed by our nature and nurture.

Therefore there is nothing in control.  Control does not exist.

Yes, the brain is.

Everything is just pre determined reaction.

Pre determined by our nature and nurture, yes.

There can be no halfway house on this.  Either we have control of our actions and words, or we have none.

We do - i.e. our brains.

What you are implying is that every word which has ever been written or spoken is just an uncontrolled reaction.

No I'm not. I'm saying it is controlled by the programing of our brains.

So perception and awareness have no purpose, since what we perceive has already taken place.

Not at all. Perception and awareness are part of the process by which our brains become programmed and how we receive the information to react to. The programming/wiring of our brains is not fixed but can change over time due to external influences such as study and exposure to different experiences. We are constantly learning and reviewing information against previous experiences.

I have no doubt that your uncontrolled reactions will just label my post as personal incredulity, but my controlled reactions will carry on believing in the power of free will.

You carry on - it's how you are programmed.

[torridon]

I understand what you are saying, but I can still think of examples which contradict these ideas.

Take a child playing on a video "shoot em up" game in an arcade.  With no previous experience of a particular game the child will soon be making the conscious decision to shoot as soon as an opportunity arises.  From my point of view as a watching bystander (parent) there is no noticable lag between the opportunity and the pull of the trigger (unless it is Dad who is playing!)

You are still making the same conceptual error here as with the F1 example.  The child isn't making a conscious decision to shoot, like all decisions, its a subconscious decision at base. Conscious awareness of the opportunity, the decision, the action are all following slightly behind the subconscious. In the fast moving game, the child might have already spotted the opportunity and taken action before his conscious awareness catches up.  You could think of it as two parallel timelines in which the conscious one trails slightly behind the subconscious one. We don't notice this lag in reality of course, how could we, we all trust our conscious experience stream as naturally as we trust our eyesight. It was only with cognitive research that we started to understand these subtleties. We have exploited these insights in real life situations however; when Army intelligence officers in Afghan were tasked with studying satellite images to find potential Taliban caves, they didn't do the obvious thing - look at the images and report suspicious caves, rather what they did was to wire them up with headsets and used software to recognise when the officer had seen a cave although he might not have known he had seen it. This proved more efficient than asking the officers, and it demonstrates how subconscious perception is faster, leaner, more subtle and more reliable than conscious perception.

[Outrider]

You cannot logically disprove of anything you have no knowledge about.

And you've provided no means by which we can gain any knowledge of your asserted deity. There have been numerous requests for a methodology by which we could investigate with any degree of confidence, and nothing has been forthcoming.

As it is, there is no onus on me to 'disprove' your claims - until and unless you can justify them I can just dismiss them with an equally robust assertion as that with which you offer them. You can believe, but I really, really don't.

You haven't even the basic knowledge most atheist have.

On the contrary, I have the basic knowledge we all have. What I don't have is unjustified confidence in one particular set of ancient superstitions over and above any of the other equally unevidenced ancient superstitions, or measurable reality.

You think you have circled arguments. But the contents where are they? Your arguments are based in ignorance and stringing words and names together which mean absolutely nothing. You lose again...

It's funny how my arguments are stringing words together, that's generally how we communicate. My arguments are, indeed, based on ignorance - yours. You ignore the burden of proof being on the claimant, you ignore the point that you have yet to explain your methodology and you ignore all the equally badly supported other superstitions that you don't accept as true, arbitrarily.

I can't lose, you've not turned up to a fight, yet. You're doing all the shouting at the pre-match weigh-in, but you don't have any gloves on yet. It's a walkover.

O.

[torridon]

So you are saying that everything a human does is just a reaction.  Therefore there is nothing in control.  Control does not exist.  Everything is just pre determined reaction.

Not exactly pre-determined because we don't know if there is any true randomness in the universe, for instance in quantum indeterminacy, and so we don't know how that might impact. But at the level of chemistry and biology, science is pretty much deterministic, potassium ions will travel across synapse gaps according to well understood fundamental laws and that is what emotional states boil down to, simple chemical reactions that obey the laws of nature vastly ramped up in terms of complexity.  And this tallies with the more philosophical imperative, that we can only understand anything at all because the law of cause and effect pervades. Everything has a reason, and 'free will' decisions that were based on no reason whatsoever would totally pointless, random. A choice has to serve a purpose, the word 'serve' there indicates that choices are not free, they serve a master, need.  This is action and reaction played out at the messy and complex level of behaviour.

[Alan Burns]

Everything has a reason, and 'free will' decisions that were based on no reason whatsoever would totally pointless, random. A choice has to serve a purpose, the word 'serve' there indicates that choices are not free, they serve a master, need. 

My concept of Free Will is not a random process.  I believe it is driven by the conscious will power of our human soul.  Without this will power, the brain is not in control - it is just reacting.

[Outrider]

My concept of Free Will is not a random process.  I believe it is driven by the conscious will power of our human soul.  Without this will power, the brain is not in control - it is just reacting.

And what information does this 'will' act upon? Does it decide based upon previous experience modifying an underlying nature? If so, how is it 'free' of those influences? If not, how is it 'will'?

O.

[jeremyp]

How do you know you're not programmed to make the opposite choice when you are trying to demonstrate your free will?

Is it possible to write a programme in which a robot is aware of its own thoughts? I think not. If you can suggest a way, then I will consider it.

How do you know it is not possible? I'm actually pretty sure it is possible. You could write a computer program to simulate a human brain with a powerful enough computer and stick it in a robot, for example.

[Maeght]

My concept of Free Will is not a random process.  I believe it is driven by the conscious will power of our human soul.  Without this will power, the brain is not in control - it is just reacting.

Still in control whether its 'just' reacting or not.

[jeremyp]

The 'switch' is inside Lewis Hamilton. The 'switch' though, is a rigourously updated algorithm built from his prior experiences laid over his underlying nature. Lewis' awareness of the decision comes after his brain has already made it.

O.

But surely he has to make the decision in real time, otherwise how could it succeed?

His conscious doesn't become aware of it until it has already been made though.

Have you ever been reading a book and looked up at a clock on the wall and had the illusion that the second hand is momentarily frozen? This is caused by the fact that it takes quite a long time for the muscles in your eye to bring the clock into focus. Your brain backfills your memory of that period with the first coherent image it gets from the clock.

[torridon]

My concept of Free Will is not a random process.  I believe it is driven by the conscious will power of our human soul.  Without this will power, the brain is not in control - it is just reacting.

Any event is either random, or it is a consequence of prior events.  There is no real place for 'will' in between

[ekim]

Any event is either random, or it is a consequence of prior events.  There is no real place for 'will' in between

Isn't there the will to select from multiple prior events to try to influence the present or future?  Although it may not be free from the past, there is intention and there is the possibility of selection and rejection.  The opposite is to be a will-less fatalist just unconsciously drifting from event to event.  Is this how you see your life?

[Outrider]

Isn't there the will to select from multiple prior events to try to influence the present or future?  Although it may not be free from the past, there is intention and there is the possibility of selection and rejection.  The opposite is to be a will-less fatalist just unconsciously drifting from event to event.  Is this how you see your life?

I don't think anyone's denying will - just the idea that will is somehow 'free'. We are the processors that determine what our bodies will do, but the algorithm in that processor is itself an inevitable consequence of the events of our lives and our inherent nature.

O.

[ekim]

I don't think anyone's denying will - just the idea that will is somehow 'free'. We are the processors that determine what our bodies will do, but the algorithm in that processor is itself an inevitable consequence of the events of our lives and our inherent nature.

O.

OK, I misunderstood.  Are we not free to exercise that will to choose to alter that processor and its contents which have been built upon past events?