Searching for GOD...

[Nearly Sane]

I'm afraid you confuse me with all these expressions.   

Evolution favours traits that enhance survival and reproduction. If the ability to choose fits the bill, then evolution will favour it when it arises.

Which is fine and irrelevant to an argument about free will.


That you seem to have no understanding of the argument is yet another way you are like Alan Burns, and we (you, me and indeed others) have gone into this in a fair amount of detail before.

I'm willing to start from scratch but you'll have to do it too

[Leonard James]

Which is fine and irrelevant to an argument about free will.

Why is it irrelevant? If a mutation gives an ability useful for survival, then it will prosper. Being free to choose between courses of action is one such ability. What is your argument against a mutation conferring such an ability?

[Nearly Sane]

Why is it irrelevant? If a mutation gives an ability useful for survival, then it will prosper. Being free to choose between courses of action is one such ability. What is your argument against a mutation conferring such an ability?

Science. As I covered in the last post that you edited, if you don't understand  basic terms as you have admitted we need start from scratch. The position you have just covered above is exactly Alan Burns argument from incredulity fallacy. You need to make the case not just suggest that it has been argued against.

As already covered many times, the scientific argument you are making is based on cause and effect and free will assumes no cause. Again as said. We can look at this from scratch though it has no real connection with this thread.

[Leonard James]

Science. As I covered in the last post that you edited, if you don't understand  basic terms as you have admitted we need start from scratch. The position you have just covered above is exactly Alan Burns argument from incredulity fallacy. You need to make the case not just suggest that it has been argued against.

As already covered many times, the scientific argument you are making is based on cause and effect and free will assumes no cause. Again as said. We can look at this from scratch though it has no real connection with this thread.

Surely the cause of all mutations is faulty copying. Why does that not apply in this case?

[Nearly Sane]

Surely the cause of all mutations is faulty copying. Why does that not apply in this case?

Straw man. The idea of free will isn't about how it might have occurred but what it is.
The entirety of Science is based on the idea of determinism or possibly random with deteminism, the random being part of quantum, which does not cover free. Can you explain however will which breaks determinism exists? If you can could you cover what it is as an overall theory to y have about how we investigate things, can and could be done with no assumption of cause and effect?

If there is anything of this that doesn't make sense, I suggest again new thread and we can start from scratch. Note if you think that  you have understood most of the challenges to Alan from myself, torridon, shaker, or bluehillside and you do not think you understand much of this, then you are wrong in one of those.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Straw man. The idea of free will isn't about how it might have occurred but what it is.
The entirety of Science is based on the idea of determinism or possibly random with deteminism, the random being part of quantum, which does not cover free. Can you explain however will which breaks determinism exists? If you can could you cover what it is as an overall theory to y have about how we investigate things, can and could be done with no assumption of cause and effect?

If there is anything of this that doesn't make sense, I suggest again new thread and we can start from scratch. Note if you think that  you have understood most of the challenges to Alan from myself, torridon, shaker, or bluehillside and you do not think you understand much of this, then you are wrong in one of those.

There's more than a whiff of Daniel Dennett about this thread.

I call it Dennettics.

[Leonard James]

Straw man. The idea of free will isn't about how it might have occurred but what it is.
The entirety of Science is based on the idea of determinism or possibly random with deteminism, the random being part of quantum, which does not cover free. Can you explain however will which breaks determinism exists? If you can could you cover what it is as an overall theory to y have about how we investigate things, can and could be done with no assumption of cause and effect?

If there is anything of this that doesn't make sense, I suggest again new thread and we can start from scratch. Note if you think that  you have understood most of the challenges to Alan from myself, torridon, shaker, or bluehillside and you do not think you understand much of this, then you are wrong in one of those.

Hi NS,

I definitely do NOT understand most of the challenges from you 4 guys ... I simply know that you are far more informed about science than I am, and accept what you say for the same reasons as I accept what Dawkins, Harris, etc., say.

Furthermore, as an old man, I know my limitations. If I were younger, I would set about learning and understanding all this stuff, but it is now quite out of my reach, due entirely to my inability to remember new arguments for more than a short time.

And that is why I know we would both be wasting our time if I accepted your kind offer to teach me. Believe me, getting old is a sad business, even though you fight it every step of the way as I try to.

[SusanDoris]

I hesitate to add anything here, but it seems to me that the fight or flight response in prey species is an instinct which has enabled survival, but the prey animal does not make a choice.  Hmmm. I do not know on which sideof the argument that puts me!

[torridon]

I hesitate to add anything here, but it seems to me that the fight or flight response in prey species is an instinct which has enabled survival, but the prey animal does not make a choice.  Hmmm. I do not know on which sideof the argument that puts me!

Brains make choices constantly and most of the time we are not even aware of the work that has gone into making a choice, it's mostly under the hood, so to speak. In a flight or fight situation both prey and predator are making fast moving decisions trying to outmaneouvre the other guy and they live or die by the speed and quality of that decision making.  Humans rather uniquely have developed specialised upper cognitive functions enabling us to make more complex decisions requiring  periods of extended contemplation; this allows us for instance to make more insightful choices than a merely instinctive choice; for instance I can resist that slab of chocolate cake because of the implications for my blood glucose levels. This is why we feel we have free will, we are aware of multiple options from which to choose and often we are not consciously aware of the limitations or infringements on our liberty.  I'd say we have more degrees of apparent freedom, in a popular sense, than a prey animal, say, but that doesn't validate the notion of free will at a fundamental level, which claims that humans uniquely have freed themselves from determinism or from the laws of nature which constitute us.

[jjohnjil]

Hi NS,

I definitely do NOT understand most of the challenges from you 4 guys ... I simply know that you are far more informed about science than I am, and accept what you say for the same reasons as I accept what Dawkins, Harris, etc., say.

Furthermore, as an old man, I know my limitations. If I were younger, I would set about learning and understanding all this stuff, but it is now quite out of my reach, due entirely to my inability to remember new arguments for more than a short time.

And that is why I know we would both be wasting our time if I accepted your kind offer to teach me. Believe me, getting old is a sad business, even though you fight it every step of the way as I try to.

Hi Len

What seems to us to be a free choice obviously can't be free from all the experiences the person/animal has had previously.  The brain weighs up all the risks/ benefits subconciously in fractions of a second and then it seems as if we/it are making a 'free' choice. 

Imagine atanding and watching someone drowning, in your head you are weighing up all the risks of jumping in the water to help; the natural evolutionary urge to save life; the suffering the person will go through if you don't help them ... all these go through your brain in a split second without you realising it.

At some point, all these signals racing across the connections between the neurons in your noddle come to a decicion based on all tho myriad of factors that you are not conciously aware of and this seems to us to have been a completely free choice. 

Hope you're keeping fit and well.     

[torridon]

Hi NS,

I definitely do NOT understand most of the challenges from you 4 guys ... I simply know that you are far more informed about science than I am, and accept what you say for the same reasons as I accept what Dawkins, Harris, etc., say.

Furthermore, as an old man, I know my limitations. If I were younger, I would set about learning and understanding all this stuff, but it is now quite out of my reach, due entirely to my inability to remember new arguments for more than a short time.

And that is why I know we would both be wasting our time if I accepted your kind offer to teach me. Believe me, getting old is a sad business, even though you fight it every step of the way as I try to.

Hugs to Len, for such a touching post

[Nearly Sane]

Hi NS,

I definitely do NOT understand most of the challenges from you 4 guys ... I simply know that you are far more informed about science than I am, and accept what you say for the same reasons as I accept what Dawkins, Harris, etc., say.

Furthermore, as an old man, I know my limitations. If I were younger, I would set about learning and understanding all this stuff, but it is now quite out of my reach, due entirely to my inability to remember new arguments for more than a short time.

And that is why I know we would both be wasting our time if I accepted your kind offer to teach me. Believe me, getting old is a sad business, even though you fight it every step of the way as I try to.

My hat is doffed, gentle sir. Take care and enjoy and let us forget the arguments and walk together hand in hand through the sun and flowers, stopping off for the soaps.

[floo]

I have come to the conclusion, especially today, that the older one gets the less one knows. When one is young, one knows it all!

[SusanDoris]

Torridon

Thank you.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if far more people knew about evolution and how amazingly lucky we, the human species, are to have evolved ... ...

[torridon]

Hugs to Susan too 

Seems to be a good day for hugging 

[Leonard James]

Thanks people! I don't know why I bother myself with all this stuff, but though I constantly try I don't seem able to sit back and not take part.

Maybe it's because sitting in front of the screen typing is less energetic than getting on with the things that have to be done! 

[Outrider]

Sane.....I'm not sure old son, but I think you might just be guilty of the dreaded methodological /philosophical materialist conflation.

No, if you actually follow the argument he isn't. Our thought processes, according to the methodologies of science, are either the inevitable response of the accumulated deterministic reactions of our neurons, or they are combined with random elements - they are either will or they are free, but not both.

Does science actually evidence a lack of a soul yet? Has science actually solved the problem posed by the P zombie yet ? I rather think not in both cases.

Science is not in the business of proving a negative - until there is evidence to support a claim it is merely not accepted. The problem is that the 'method' of free will does not conform to a scientific process - it is neither random, nor following a material cause and effect process.

To be operating on an ''Oh but it will'' isn't good enough.

Good enough for what? It's not good enough to accept the idea of free will, I'd agree, but seeing as that's not being done it's not a problem. 'We'll accept free will if an when you can explain the mechanism in a testable way' is entirely in keeping with the precepts of scientific enquiry.

I think you might have to sit on the naughty step with the reductionist materialists like Hillside who let's face it has being doing a hell of a lot of gussying up on this thread.

I think you might need to learn to read better...

O.

[Alan Burns]

Wouldn't it be wonderful if far more people knew about evolution and how amazingly lucky we, the human species, are to have evolved ... ...

And wouldn't it be even more wonderful if people discovered that they are free to choose their own destiny in God's love. 

[Leonard James]

And wouldn't it be even more wonderful if people discovered that they are free to choose their own destiny in God's love. 

Nobody can choose their own destiny, Alan, we have to accept what fate throws at us and make the best of it we can.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Science is not in the business of proving a negative -

O.

Really ? I believe it has been most successful in demonstrating the lack of Phlogiston.

On another matter if science is unhappy with the lack of soul........Is it any happier with the term Illusion of self?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Having skimmed through you last few posts  .....
Apart from that though...

BH,
Thank you for your very detailed response.

I admit that I sometimes appear to get tied up in knots trying to explain my point of view in so many different ways to get through to people.

As I have explained many times in many ways, the core of my belief is simply that our human soul enables our bodies not only to exist, survive and react to our earthly environment, but to be aware of this reality we are in, and to consciously interact with it.

I think it is the scientific community which gets tied up in knots trying to explain the concepts of conscious awareness and free will in deterministic terms.  I firmly believe that these spiritual properties will never be fully understood. (personal incredulity again  )

[torridon]

As I have explained many times in many ways, the core of my belief is simply that our human soul enables our bodies not only to exist, survive and react to our earthly environment, but to be aware of this reality we are in, and to consciously interact with it.

Yes, we know that is your belief, but with no evidence in support, it is just baseless assertion, hence no reason to take it seriously. Humans the world over entertain gazillions of baseless beliefs, mostly legacy from our less educated past; some of us just prefer a little discipline and discernment in our thinking.

[ekim]

Yes, we know that is your belief, but with no evidence in support, it is just baseless assertion, hence no reason to take it seriously. Humans the world over entertain gazillions of baseless beliefs, mostly legacy from our less educated past; some of us just prefer a little discipline and discernment in our thinking.

Without the will and freedom to choose a preference perhaps you could teach him how to attain discernment in his thinking.

[torridon]

Smarty pants.  I'm watching you 

[SusanDoris]

And wouldn't it be even more wonderful if people discovered that they are free to choose their own destiny in God's love. 

There you go again with the candy-floss-pink, cotton-woolly , smothering blanket which hides people from the freshness, wonder, excitement  and clarity of reality.