Searching for GOD...

[Nearly Sane]

I didn't know you had a baby, congratulations to you both.
I'm fine with a slowish pace, in fact many don't realise what one has to put in to one of these forums as a ''Village'' theist.
I think we're meant to PM the mods with a proposal and title and proposer and oppose and all that sort of thing.

Link to the process

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=12470.0

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Link to the process

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=12470.0

Alas and alack on reflection I have decided that there can be no more Vlad involvement on the forum and that will be indefinitely. I thought showing an intention to limit my involvement to just the debate section was going to be a good halfway house but I now realise that that is not the radical step I need to make.
No blame, just don't want the volume or to be a conduit or a receptacle for a multiple since it is,after all a spare time thing. So farewell everyone.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Alas and alack on reflection I have decided that there can be no more Vlad involvement on the forum and that will be indefinitely. I thought showing an intention to limit my involvement to just the debate section was going to be a good halfway house but I now realise that that is not the radical step I need to make.
No blame, just don't want the volume or to be a conduit or a receptacle for a multiple since it is,after all a spare time thing. So farewell everyone.

It's not that easy old son - believe me, I've tried.

I wish you well with it though.

[SusanDoris]

Vlad

Remember what Shaker always says!

[Alan Burns]

AB,

A question isn't an argument. Worse yet, the evidence we do have suggests strongly that "you" and "me" are useful constructs that help us navigate the world we appear to occupy by making the choices that appear to be available to us, whereas the underlying reality is that what's actually happening is the playing out of unfathomably long chains of cause and effect.

How does that help your conjectures about "spirit" and "soul" and such like?

So from one aimless unfathomable chain of cause and effect to another aimless unfathomable chain of cause and effect, what is the point of one piece of nature arguing against another piece of nature about the nature of nature 

Get to grips with yourself and realise there is much more to you and me than the uncontrolled deterministic forces of nature. 

[Stranger]

So from one aimless unfathomable chain of cause and effect to another aimless unfathomable chain of cause and effect, what is the point of one piece of nature arguing against another piece of nature about the nature of nature 

Get to grips with yourself and realise there is much more to you and me than the uncontrolled deterministic forces of nature.

Frankly silly prejudicial language again. The idea of "one piece of nature arguing against another piece of nature about the nature of nature" at least makes logical sense, whereas a self-contradictory soul that operates without determinism or randomness, does not.

[Gordon]

So from one aimless unfathomable chain of cause and effect to another aimless unfathomable chain of cause and effect, what is the point of one piece of nature arguing against another piece of nature about the nature of nature 

Get to grips with yourself and realise there is much more to you and me than the uncontrolled deterministic forces of nature.

There is no 'point', Alan - just events and whatever your biology and the biology of associated others, both known to you or not, living currently or not, make of the events they are presented with - which, in turn, creates different circumstances etc etc etc.

Sometimes these circumstances involve positives that you or others value: but sometimes not. Sometimes there may be notable consequences or sometimes these events may be transient or trivial: sometimes events might seem predicable, but sometimes not.

Such is life.     

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

So from one aimless unfathomable chain of cause and effect to another aimless unfathomable chain of cause and effect, what is the point of one piece of nature arguing against another piece of nature about the nature of nature 

What makes you think there has to be "a point" to accept were the evidence leads?

There's plenty of "point" within the parochial world we appear to occupy, but there's no reason to think that that point should be a universal one too.

Get to grips with yourself and realise there is much more to you and me than the uncontrolled deterministic forces of nature.

How would you propose that I "realise" that without you being able to make an argument for it?

[Sebastian Toe]

Alas and alack on reflection I have decided that there can be no more Vlad involvement on the forum and that will be indefinitely. I thought showing an intention to limit my involvement to just the debate section was going to be a good halfway house but I now realise that that is not the radical step I need to make.
No blame, just don't want the volume or to be a conduit or a receptacle for a multiple since it is,after all a spare time thing. So farewell everyone.

At last, you got on stage before it wore off!
Pity it was you last ever post though!   

[torridon]

So from one aimless unfathomable chain of cause and effect to another aimless unfathomable chain of cause and effect, what is the point of one piece of nature arguing against another piece of nature about the nature of nature 

Get to grips with yourself and realise there is much more to you and me than the uncontrolled deterministic forces of nature.

I can understand that sentiment and acknowledge that the vast majority of people go through their lives quite happily without feeling the need to ponder what lies beneath our everyday conceptions of reality. We aren't all homogeneous though,  for some of us a life unexamined is a shallow life, an opportunity to grow and understand, lost

[Alan Burns]

I can understand that sentiment and acknowledge that the vast majority of people go through their lives quite happily without feeling the need to ponder what lies beneath our everyday conceptions of reality. We aren't all homogeneous though,  for some of us a life unexamined is a shallow life, an opportunity to grow and understand, lost

But what is it that ponders, examines, understands, discovers, categorises .....?
Can it really be a few curious molecules in our brain cells?

[Gordon]

But what is it that ponders, examines, understands, discovers, categorises .....?
Can it really be a few curious molecules in our brain cells?

Yet again this is the fallacy of composition: that these molecules (curious or otherwise) don't themselves think doesn't mean that the thing they are part of, the brain, doesn't think.

[Stranger]

But what is it that ponders, examines, understands, discovers, categorises .....?
Can it really be a few curious molecules in our brain cells?

The human brain incredibly complex - to characterize its function as "a few curious molecules in our brain cells" is dishonest.

[Enki]

But what is it that ponders, examines, understands, discovers, categorises .....?
Can it really be a few curious molecules in our brain cells?

A few, Alan? There are, on average, 86 billion neurons in the human brain, with many of them in the cerebral cortex. Obviously, in your case, many are needed to support your incredulity complex.

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

Alas and alack on reflection I have decided that there can be no more Vlad involvement on the forum and that will be indefinitely. I thought showing an intention to limit my involvement to just the debate section was going to be a good halfway house but I now realise that that is not the radical step I need to make.
No blame, just don't want the volume or to be a conduit or a receptacle for a multiple since it is,after all a spare time thing. So farewell everyone.

All the best.

I learnt a lot from reading your posts.

[torridon]

But what is it that ponders, examines, understands, discovers, categorises .....?
Can it really be a few curious molecules in our brain cells?

Molecules can't think, clearly, and no termite understands the principles of air conditioning either.  Yet it seems that complexity arises out of complicated arrangements of simpler constituents.  The hamburger I ate yesterday did not just give me energy to get through the day, that hamburger is me now; suitably rearranged, it has started to become part of the action of thinking and examining and understanding. This is what the evidence suggests and it reveals a cosmos that is capable of producing short term pockets of high order sentience.

[Alan Burns]

A few, Alan? There are, on average, 86 billion neurons in the human brain, with many of them in the cerebral cortex. Obviously, in your case, many are needed to support your incredulity complex.

No matter how big the network of neurons, alone it is still entirely driven by uncontrollable deterministic action of previous physical events.  I can see how this internal complexity can produce complex reactions to events, but these reactions do not define conscious thought or have the freedom to drive our free thought processes.  I know that the materialist explanation will claim that our freedom to drive thought processes is an illusion, but I still have to claim that my freedom to compose and write this post is no illusion because it is me, not the aimless forces of nature which is responsible for this post.

[Enki]

No matter how big the network of neurons, alone it is still entirely driven by uncontrollable deterministic action of previous physical events.  I can see how this internal complexity can produce complex reactions to events, but these reactions do not define conscious thought or have the freedom to drive our free thought processes.  I know that the materialist explanation will claim that our freedom to drive thought processes is an illusion, but I still have to claim that my freedom to compose and write this post is no illusion because it is me, not the aimless forces of nature which is responsible for this post.

I was simply responding to your rather odd and mistaken view that only a few molecules(and curious ones at that) make up our brain. In fact, neurons are cells, and cells are made up of molecules, such as phospholipids and proteins. I'm glad that you now seem to be having second thoughts about that remark.

As far as your personal views on the subject of souls and free will are concerned, that's up to you. Obviously I don't share them, especially as you seem unable to express cogent arguments to support them, preferring to use pure assertion and a certain amount of incredulity that others may hold very different views to your own. Still, that's life, I suppose.

[Stranger]

No matter how big the network of neurons, alone it is still entirely driven by uncontrollable deterministic action of previous physical events.  I can see how this internal complexity can produce complex reactions to events, but these reactions do not define conscious thought or have the freedom to drive our free thought processes.  I know that the materialist explanation will claim that our freedom to drive thought processes is an illusion, but I still have to claim that my freedom to compose and write this post is no illusion because it is me, not the aimless forces of nature which is responsible for this post.

Prejudicial language, unwarranted linking of determinism to physical, baseless assertion, assuming the conclusion, and personal incredulity...

[Nearly Sane]

Prejudicial language, unwarranted linking of determinism to physical, baseless assertion, assuming the conclusion, and personal incredulity...

House!

[Outrider]

No matter how big the network of neurons, alone it is still entirely driven by uncontrollable deterministic action of previous physical events.  I can see how this internal complexity can produce complex reactions to events, but these reactions do not define conscious thought or have the freedom to drive our free thought processes.  I know that the materialist explanation will claim that our freedom to drive thought processes is an illusion, but I still have to claim that my freedom to compose and write this post is no illusion because it is me, not the aimless forces of nature which is responsible for this post.

And why aren't you an aimless force of nature? That's not a facetious question, we are well aware that many, many aspects of our sense of self are inaccurate, why should this one be any different?

Or, to put it differently, why is your sense of free will right, but my sense of being a product of determined complexity wrong?

O.

[SusanDoris]

All the best.

I learnt a lot from reading your posts.

Dare I ask for an example? Probably not!

[Alan Burns]

And why aren't you an aimless force of nature? That's not a facetious question, we are well aware that many, many aspects of our sense of self are inaccurate, why should this one be any different?

Or, to put it differently, why is your sense of free will right, but my sense of being a product of determined complexity wrong?

O.

My gift of free will is what I used to open up the door to God and discover His love for us.  If I was merely a product of determined complexity I could not have done this.

[Alan Burns]

Prejudicial language, unwarranted linking of determinism to physical, baseless assertion, assuming the conclusion, and personal incredulity...

Is there no limit to what these natural unguided forces of nature can get wrong 

[Maeght]

My gift of free will is what I used to open up the door to God and discover His love for us.  If I was merely a product of determined complexity I could not have done this.

Why on earth not?