Searching for GOD...

[torridon]

Pain is a reflex action.
But when you contemplate the beauty of a sunset, or a work of art, your conscious awareness is directed (by you), not dictated.

I'd agree there are varying degrees of agency in how we respond to different stimuli.  Every time I get punched on the nose, it hurts. End of story; so far, so deterministic.  Show me a torridonian landscape and I will probably respond to it emotionally; I like that sort of thing, it moves me; however the same is not true of everyone; some people are completely unmoved by that.  So now we have more subtlety in the range of responses, and note that I do not decide to like landscapes, I just do. It's not a conscious choice I make. I once bought a house in Devon, something I weighed up over a period of months; clearly conscious mind was involved in that process of weighing up; but I still made the choice that I wanted to make. In a complex decision like that there are many considerations to take into account but at each point where I might favour some or other aspect I don't control what I like and what I don't like.  The process of weighing up is an accountancy exercise balancing all the various components of likes and dislikes, but at point of origin, no one chooses what to like and what to dislike. We are always acting out and evaluating such conflicting interests but we never choose them.  The very idea that we could choose what we like is incoherent.  On what basis could we make such a choice ?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

So the real "you" is the little man at the controls, but the physical you is just a vehicle he happens to be driving for a bit? So which one should we send to jail for murder - the invisible little man or his vehicle?

The entirely physical man would be exonerated because it was the unavoidable deterministic forces of nature wot did it.

It is because we are driven by the free spirit of our soul that we can be held to account for our actions.

[Stranger]

The entirely physical man would be exonerated because it was the unavoidable deterministic forces of nature wot did it.

It is because we are driven by the free spirit of our soul that we can be held to account for our actions.

...which also has to be deterministic.       

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The entirely physical man would be exonerated because it was the unavoidable deterministic forces of nature wot did it.

Er no - the "entirely physical man" is what the courts deal with every day. So far as I know they don't concern themselves with the guilt or otherwise of the "souls" that are supposedly driving them. And besides, are you saying that these randomly functioning souls of yours are also also good and bad and so it's they who are committing the murders all along?

Is that really where you want to be? Really?

It is because we are driven by the free spirit of our soul that we can be held to account for our actions.

So the courts are actually trying souls then?

Oh, and see you've just ignored my correction of where you went wrong with the gravity/awareness comparison charge.

Do you think that's honest of you?

[Alan Burns]

I'd agree there are varying degrees of agency in how we respond to different stimuli.  Every time I get punched on the nose, it hurts. End of story; so far, so deterministic.  Show me a torridonian landscape and I will probably respond to it emotionally; I like that sort of thing, it moves me; however the same is not true of everyone; some people are completely unmoved by that.  So now we have more subtlety in the range of responses, and note that I do not decide to like landscapes, I just do. It's not a conscious choice I make. I once bought a house in Devon, something I weighed up over a period of months; clearly conscious mind was involved in that process of weighing up; but I still made the choice that I wanted to make. In a complex decision like that there are many considerations to take into account but at each point where I might favour some or other aspect I don't control what I like and what I don't like.  The process of weighing up is an accountancy exercise balancing all the various components of likes and dislikes, but at point of origin, no one chooses what to like and what to dislike. We are always acting out and evaluating such conflicting interests but we never choose them.  The very idea that we could choose what we like is incoherent.  On what basis could we make such a choice ?

But at the moment you chose to buy the house, you made a conscious choice not an automated choice.  It was the conscious "you" which made the final choice, not the automated uncontrolled forces of nature.

[ekim]

AB,

So the real "you" is the little man at the controls, but the physical you is just a vehicle he happens to be driving for a bit? So which one should we send to jail for murder - the invisible little man or his vehicle?

Using Jesus as an example, I suspect the answer is both.  From the Christian perspective I would guess that the bigger question is who goes to Heaven and the answer might be a soul purified of its physical and emotional attachments.

[Alan Burns]

So the courts are actually trying souls then?

The courts are assuming that the person used their free will to commit the crime, so yes, they are trying the soul of that person.

[Jack Knave]

Using Jesus as an example, I suspect the answer is both.  From the Christian perspective I would guess that the bigger question is who goes to Heaven and the answer might be a soul purified of its physical and emotional attachments.

So dead then, as in Dead!!!

If you have no emotions you have no desires. And if you have no desires you are effectively a robot i.e. consciously dead.

[Maeght]

But at the moment you chose to buy the house, you made a conscious choice not an automated choice.  It was the conscious "you" which made the final choice, not the automated uncontrolled forces of nature.

You keep saying it but cannot prove that it is just the appearance of a conscious choice. I have asked you do consider this many times but you won't. How about this time?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The courts are assuming that the person used their free will to commit the crime, so yes, they are trying the soul of that person.

Of course they are AB, of course they are.

So just to be clear - "God" creates "souls", and then he pops them into babies (or possibly he does that at the moment of conception, or maybe somewhere in between). He also gives these "souls" "free" will, only you're a bit sketchy on whether that entails them acting deterministically or randomly. Then, if that "soul" happens one day to pull the lever that moves the arm that stabs someone (using some method of interacting with the physical that you're also a bit sketchy about), the vehicle with a "soul" in it is up before the beak (who is presumably another one of these "souls" anyway) who then gets to decide whether to send the bad "soul" to prison. Along with his vehicle. Or something. 

Just out of interest, if the "yous" in this story are actually the "souls", why did this "God" of yours bother with the vehicles at all rather than just have these "souls" float around the place? It would have saved a fortune on building all those jails for starters.

[torridon]

But at the moment you chose to buy the house, you made a conscious choice not an automated choice.  It was the conscious "you" which made the final choice, not the automated uncontrolled forces of nature.

Yes, and that choice was a manifestation of the balance point of all the underlying pros and cons and at every point in those pros and cons I have no control over whether I favour them or disfavour them. We cannot just choose to like something for no reason; if you don't believe me, just try willing yourself to like something that you don't like. Our choices are not random, there are reasons for things and we choose things based on our mind state at the current point in time, and our current mind state always derives from prior mind states plus whatever novelty may be incoming at the present moment. We always make choices for a reason, even if those reasons are not evident to conscious awareness, and those 'reasons' are encoded and hosted and conserved in the vastness our neurological apparatus.

[Alan Burns]

.... only you're a bit sketchy on whether that entails them acting deterministically or randomly.

It is certainly not me that is a bit sketchy on this.  I have never inferred that free will has anything random about it.  Indeed I have constantly explained that it is certainly not random.  And it is not deterministic in the physical sense, because then it would not be freely controlled.

[Stranger]

It is certainly not me that is a bit sketchy on this.

This is totally untrue as your very next words prove...

I have never inferred that free will has anything random about it.  Indeed I have constantly explained that it is certainly not random.  And it is not deterministic in the physical sense, because then it would not be freely controlled.

There are not different types of determinism and there is no "physical sense" of the word. Either "free will" is deterministic or it isn't.

[SusanDoris]

Well, thank goodness the last two posts were written by rational posters. I can now turn off the computer without the irritation of the last post I read being one of AB's.

[Stranger]

AB,

Look, either the "free will" choices made by your "soul" are inevitable, given its entire history and all its inputs (physical or otherwise) or they are not. If they are not, then there must be a random element, because there is no third choice.

You deny a random element, so the "free" choices made by this "soul" of yours must be just as determined as if they were being made by a deterministic brain.

As I said about ten million posts ago, your "soul" gains you nothing...

[Alan Burns]

This is totally untrue as your very next words prove...

There are not different types of determinism and there is no "physical sense" of the word. Either "free will" is deterministic or it isn't.

You seem unable to grasp the concept that a free will event is invoked by a spiritual source which is free from the pre determined cause and effect chains of physical events which ultimately began with the Big Bang.  Your conscious willpower is a very powerful gift to be used wisely.  And it has nothing to do with "random".

[Alan Burns]

As I said about ten million posts ago, your "soul" gains you nothing...

If you use it wisely, it will gain you entry to heaven.

[Stranger]

You seem unable to grasp the concept that a free will event is invoked by a spiritual source which is free from the pre determined cause and effect chains of physical events which ultimately began with the Big Bang.

Arrrrrrrrrgh!

There you go avoiding the point again. Look, this has absolutely NOTHING to do with whether the chains of cause and effect are physical or not.

Either the soul works entirely by chains of cause and effect (physical or otherwise) or it has some random element. There is no third option.

Just repeating that it is "free" from physical cause and effect it irrelevant.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It is certainly not me that is a bit sketchy on this.

Well, let's see shall we?

I have never inferred that free will has anything random about it. Indeed I have constantly explained that it is certainly not random.

Asserted rather than "explained", but OK. So it's deterministic then. How does moving the determinism one step along help you?

And it is not deterministic in the physical sense...

Oh hang on - we're changing horses mid-stream again here. So it must be random then? See, just inventing the non-physical doesn't get you off the binary determined/random choice. Even once you've pouffed it into existence, the yes it is/no it isn't flip flop is still incoherent. 

...because then it would not be freely controlled.

Well no, but that's the problem you've given yourself with "soul" isn't it. Your notion of "free" will requires such an abandonment of the most basic logic that you may as well post "wibble" for you answer

And just to be clear - this is you being not sketchy right?

Incidentally, did you see what I did there? Yes, rather than cherry pick I took each part or your post and replied to it. That way I didn't come across as shifty by - ooh, I dunno - just avoiding the question about why your "God" bothered with the vehicles at all given that the real "yous" are these "souls" of yours. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

If you use it wisely, it will gain you entry to heaven.

The place of iron age myth or the gay night club?

[Alan Burns]

Just out of interest, if the "yous" in this story are actually the "souls", why did this "God" of yours bother with the vehicles at all rather than just have these "souls" float around the place? It would have saved a fortune on building all those jails for starters.

Who are we to question why God does things the way He does?  I humbly submit that my human brain is no match for God's wisdom.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Who are we to question why God does things the way He does?  I humbly submit that my human brain is no match for God's wisdom.

Ah the defence of theists through the ages when the critical mass of the contradictions in their claims makes even the most convoluted of defences impossible: "It's a mystery innit".

[Nearly Sane]

AB,

Ah the defence of theists through the ages when the critical mass of the contradictions in their claims makes even the most convoluted of defences impossible: "It's a mystery innit".

it also means that any statemeny made about their god is meaningless

[Maeght]

You seem unable to grasp the concept that a free will event is invoked by a spiritual source which is free from the pre determined cause and effect chains of physical events which ultimately began with the Big Bang.  Your conscious willpower is a very powerful gift to be used wisely.  And it has nothing to do with "random".

We can all understand what it is you are suggesting. What we cannot understand is how any choice can be neither random or predetermined. How would this conscious will power make any choice without reference to previous events? I know you will say that it is influenced a bit but free to over ride - but on what basis does it make that choice to over ride? Do you not understand what it is you are being asked?

[Gordon]

Who are we to question why God does things the way He does?  I humbly submit that my human brain is no match for God's wisdom.

You may as well hoist the white flag now, Alan - with this you've confirmed that your personal incredulity is such that it places you outside the scope of any rational discussion.