Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

So what is wrong with the deduction? Either you can see some logical flaw, and are being bizarrely reticent about revealing your insight, or you can't and are willing to abandon logic and reason - which undermines your claim that your conclusion is based on logic and reason.

If you are really reading and understanding, perhaps you could indicate which it is?

Your (and my) subjective experience is only evidence that such a subjective experience is being produced by something. It says nothing about what it is and nothing about whether we are actually deterministic or not.

I'm not trying to: I am in control and I do exist. I'm just following logic, reason, and evidence - instead of contradictory, illogical, unevidenced, wishful thinking - as my guide to what I am.

You say you are in control, so where do you deduce this control originates from?

[Stranger]

So what is wrong with the deduction? Either you can see some logical flaw, and are being bizarrely reticent about revealing your insight, or you can't and are willing to abandon logic and reason - which undermines your claim that your conclusion is based on logic and reason.

If you are really reading and understanding, perhaps you could indicate which it is?

Your (and my) subjective experience is only evidence that such a subjective experience is being produced by something. It says nothing about what it is and nothing about whether we are actually deterministic or not.

I'm not trying to: I am in control and I do exist. I'm just following logic, reason, and evidence - instead of contradictory, illogical, unevidenced, wishful thinking - as my guide to what I am.

You say you are in control, so where do you deduce this control originates from?

So, not reading and understanding at all...

[Stranger]

You say you are in control, so where do you deduce this control originates from?

From me, of course.

[Stranger]

Are you really in control of your thoughts ? Ask yourself this - can you really choose which thought to think next ?

Yes.

Probably the single most stupid comment you've ever posted!

Whatever you do, don't think of a red circle...

[Alan Burns]

From me, of course.

And how and where does this control materialise?

[Gordon]

And how and where does this control materialise?

Biology, Alan, and more specifically the bit between your ears that, for all practical purposes, is 'you'.

[Alan Burns]

Biology, Alan, and more specifically the bit between your ears that, for all practical purposes, is 'you'.

But if every event is deterministic, there is no control - just reaction to previous events.

[Gordon]

But if every event is deterministic, there is no control - just reaction to previous events.

Thing is - it feels like control, whether it is or not is another matter.

I'm responding to your last post and in doing so I have an awareness of all the previous posts in this thread and especially your own recent posts since I'm responding to you now. In responding I'm using these prior events to give context to my reply since it seems I'm able to decide what words to use - I can even decide to throw in words that are unrelated to the matter in hand - so let me say 'kangaroo' - but of course my use of this word is to illustrate the point that I can seemingly choose to use it, so I'm not using it randomly even though it doesn't relate to the detail of the discussion: but in a way it does!

Seems to me then what I'm saying, and also what you are saying, has a context in previous events and that our reaction to them involved us as agents reacting to events but using our biology in doing so - but then that is what humans do and in doing so our options may well be constrained by current and previous circumstances and our personal limitations (such as our vocabulary) even when it feels like we're exercising control.

To understand the detail needs more investigation into those aspects that are investigatable - adding a layer of illogical conjecture such as 'souls' is just so much white noise contrived so as to give you your very own hook on which to hang your choice of God - and in doing so you undervalue our species.

[Alan Burns]

Thing is - it feels like control, whether it is or not is another matter.

I'm responding to your last post and in doing so I have an awareness of all the previous posts in this thread and especially your own recent posts since I'm responding to you now. In responding I'm using these prior events to give context to my reply since it seems I'm able to decide what words to use - I can even decide to throw in words that are unrelated to the matter in hand - so let me say 'kangaroo' - but of course my use of this word is to illustrate the point that I can seemingly choose to use it, so I'm not using it randomly even though it doesn't relate to the detail of the discussion: but in a way it does!

Seems to me then what I'm saying, and also what you are saying, has a context in previous events and that our reaction to them involved us as agents reacting to events but using our biology in doing so - but then that is what humans do and in doing so our options may well be constrained by current and previous circumstances and our personal limitations (such as our vocabulary) even when it feels like we're exercising control.

To understand the detail needs more investigation into those aspects that are investigatable - adding a layer of illogical conjecture such as 'souls' is just so much white noise contrived so as to give you your very own hook on which to hang your choice of God - and in doing so you undervalue our species.

To recognise the amazing gift our creator has given us - to enable our own species to be creative, and to enable us to choose our own destiny does in no way undervalue our species.

To not recognise this gift and categorise our species as just a highly developed animal is certainly undervaluing our species.

[Stranger]

And how and where does this control materialise?

No idea what you mean by that and it's irrelevant anyway. Even if nobody had any idea at all about consciousness, it wouldn't change the fact that your "argument" is built on assertion and incredulity, is devoid of evidence, and is logically impossible.

No explanation is better than an obviously wrong "explanation".

And you still haven't answered my question:-

So what is wrong with the deduction? Either you can see some logical flaw, and are being bizarrely reticent about revealing your insight, or you can't and are willing to abandon logic and reason - which undermines your claim that your conclusion is based on logic and reason.

If you are really reading and understanding, perhaps you could indicate which it is?

[torridon]

Are you really in control of your thoughts ? Ask yourself this - can you really choose which thought to think next ?

Yes.
That is the point I am trying to get across.  Surely any artist would claim that he is responsible for his own creativity.  The control behind this creativity must originate from somewhere, and I believe it is in the conscious awareness of the human soul, not in the endless chains of uncontrollable cause and effect.

At broad scales, that might be reasonable.  I might plan to spend two hours studying French tonight.  But to consider how mind works with a greater degree of subtlety, put a moment of choice under a microscope. I cannot really consciously choose what to think next, because in order to consciously ponder something, it must already be in mind. There is an impossible circularity there. What happens in reality, is that thoughts happen, thoughts emerge into conscious mind from lower levels of mind. We do not consciously control them.

[torridon]

But if every event is deterministic, there is no control - just reaction to previous events.

We have a feeling of control, it is what psychologists call agency.  It disappears as soon as you go to sleep though, so clearly this feeling is all part and parcel of the contents of consciousness. When consciousness goes, so does all its associated paraphernalia - perception, self awareness, agency, cognition etc.

[SusanDoris]

Alan Burns

In view of what torridon has to say in his post quoted below, do you think that God/soul/spirit/?? takes over when you are asleep? If not, what do you think happens instead?

We have a feeling of control, it is what psychologists call agency.  It disappears as soon as you go to sleep though, so clearly this feeling is all part and parcel of the contents of consciousness. When consciousness goes, so does all its associated paraphernalia - perception, self awareness, agency, cognition etc.

[Alan Burns]

Alan Burns

In view of what torridon has to say in his post quoted below, do you think that God/soul/spirit/?? takes over when you are asleep? If not, what do you think happens instead?

Our physical senses are the soul's window into this universe.  When the senses close down during sleep, the window closes.  Physicists tell us that time is a property of this universe, so the soul's perception of time will also cease until the senses open up again.

[SusanDoris]

Our physical senses are the soul's window into this universe.  When the senses close down during sleep, the window closes.  Physicists tell us that time is a property of this universe, so the soul's perception of time will also cease until the senses open up again.

That all sounds like a bit of gobbledy-gook to me. I'll be interested in what torridon  or skos say.

[Alan Burns]

No idea what you mean by that and it's irrelevant anyway. Even if nobody had any idea at all about consciousness, it wouldn't change the fact that your "argument" is built on assertion and incredulity, is devoid of evidence, and is logically impossible.

No explanation is better than an obviously wrong "explanation".

And you still haven't answered my question:-

But I have posited that there is a third option to the cause of events in our brains - in addition to determinism and random there is conscious control.  You claim this to be impossible, but until you can define what consciousness is, you are not at liberty to define what it can or can't do.  Conscious control is the reality I perceive, and I am unable to compromise this reality to fit in with the limited human scientific knowledge to date.

[Gordon]

But I have posited that there is a third option to the cause of events in our brains - in addition to determinism and random there is conscious control.

So you have - the problem is, as has been pointed out, your 3rd option is illogical.

You claim this to be impossible, but until you can define what consciousness is, you are not at liberty to define what it can or can't do.

In that case neither are you.

Conscious control is the reality I perceive, and I am unable to compromise this reality to fit in with the limited human scientific knowledge to date.

Which is a fallacy two-fer: ignorance and personal incredulity.

[Nearly Sane]

But I have posited that there is a third option to the cause of events in our brains - in addition to determinism and random there is conscious control.  You claim this to be impossible, but until you can define what consciousness is, you are not at liberty to define what it can or can't do.  Conscious control is the reality I perceive, and I am unable to compromise this reality to fit in with the limited human scientific knowledge to date.

Given yiy are using personal experience to trump scientific findings, can you lay out how you make a choice that is not determined or random. What is the method?

[ekim]

We have a feeling of control, it is what psychologists call agency.  It disappears as soon as you go to sleep though, so clearly this feeling is all part and parcel of the contents of consciousness. When consciousness goes, so does all its associated paraphernalia - perception, self awareness, agency, cognition etc.

I doubt whether enough is known about consciousness as to determine what it is (if anything at all).  It might be something as simple and neutral as 'that which observes'.  When we fall asleep it could be that pathways to certain functions like reasoning and memory are temporarily inhibited so that consciousness is spread unimpeded throughout the body so that healing and regeneration can better take place e.g. those dreamless times but the body moves quite a lot and those times when the body movements are relatively still but the psyche is engaged in dreaming.  Such a consciousness doesn't control but perhaps it facilitates harmony. What is sometimes thought of as control are just attempts at suppression and often suppression is just delayed expression.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

If you continue to think in purely material terms, then I agree it must be deterministic or random.
But if you add the spiritual dimension we have deterministic, random or consciously driven.

Deterministic implies automated, whereas consciously driven is the reality we perceive.

Lots of problems there:

First you have not one scrap of logic or evidence to suggest even that there is such a thing as a “spiritual dimension”.

Second, in the unlikely even that you were ever able to demonstrate such a thing you would still have no method to identify what phenomena populate it as opposed to you just guessing about stuff.

Third, even if these first two didn’t undo you'd still you’d have no licence to claim any illogical wreckage of a thought to be magically legitimate: if you seriously think that consciousness that’s neither deterministic nor random is meaningful, then you’d have no choice but to allow me to include four-sided triangles too. That’s your problem – if you want to conjure of a world in which illogical and contradictory conjectures are real, then you have to allow for any other contradictory illogicality to be permissible: up could be down, apple could fall upwards, the clocks could strike thirteen.

It's all utterly bonkers, but that's the corner into which you've painted yourself.

[Stranger]

But I have posited that there is a third option to the cause of events in our brains - in addition to determinism and random there is conscious control. 

You have asserted it and I have explained why it is impossible. You have not even attempted to address the logic of what I said, let alone offered any counterargument.

You claim this to be impossible, but until you can define what consciousness is, you are not at liberty to define what it can or can't do.

I don't need to know how it works. All that is needed for my argument to work is that consciousness produces choices and is subject to the logic that either things happen for reasons or not for reasons.

Conscious control is the reality I perceive, and I am unable to compromise this reality to fit in with the limited human scientific knowledge to date.

Firstly, nothing I have said contradicts your experience of conscious control. Secondly, it has nothing to with "limited human scientific knowledge to date", you are arguing against logic. If you maintain that stance, then any claim that you arrived at your conclusion using reason and logic is shown to be false...

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But I have posited that there is a third option to the cause of events in our brains - in addition to determinism and random there is conscious control.

You can posit that if you want to, but it collapses immediately you apply some logic to it. Essentially what you’re telling us here is equivalent to, “OK four-sided triangles is meaningless, but not in the spiritual world so they must be real”.

Doesn’t wash does it.

You claim this to be impossible, but until you can define what consciousness is, you are not at liberty to define what it can or can't do.

See whether you can see where you went wrong there.

First, you’re the one who tells us that self-awareness is "impossible".

Second, we have robust naturalistic explanations for lots of phenomena we can’t describe fully. Why make consciousness an exception from that general rule?

Third, you’re just invoking your “it’s magic innit” escape clause again. Dream up “spiritual” and all bets are off – you can fill that space with any ludicrousness you like, but absent even a scrap of logic or evidence for any of it all you have is incoherent guessing.   

Conscious control is the reality I perceive, and I am unable to compromise this reality to fit in with the limited human scientific knowledge to date.

What makes you think your personal perception is more reliable than the science that often tells us that our perception is wrong about many things? If you take a lift downwards when it slows at the bottom your perception is that it’s pushing up at your feet isn’t it. Would you also trust your perception about that, or do you trust your perception over the science only in the one field of religious belief that happens to appeal to you the most?

[floo]

Animals of other species have brains and are conscious. If their brains eventually develop to match that of the human animal's brain, which could be possible, would they be considered to have 'souls' too?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Floo,

Animals of other species have brains and are conscious. If their brains eventually develop to match that of the human animal's brain, which could be possible, would they be considered to have 'souls' too?

Fyi, here's an example of what AB calls a "dumb" animal in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snl4U8HPdtQ

The conceptualising of the result, the forward planning, the skilled execution etc are quite remarkable - only according to AB this orang utan isn't conscious, s/he is just "perceiving". 

[Alan Burns]

Floo,

Fyi, here's an example of what AB calls a "dumb" animal in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snl4U8HPdtQ

The conceptualising of the result, the forward planning, the skilled execution etc are quite remarkable - only according to AB this orang utan isn't conscious, s/he is just "perceiving".

The orang utan looks to be just acting out the deterministic events programmed in its brain from instinct and learnt experience, but It shows no evidence of having the capacity to override these deterministic actions by using the gift of conscious free will.