Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

You must recognise that the information we can detect with our physical senses and man made instruments is limited compared to the entire reality of things.  In other words, science has given us some pieces of the jigsaw, but it is not complete, and we have no idea just how many missing pieces there are.  So to extrapolate from the scientific knowledge alone may well give a false picture of reality.

All true. However, science has a methodology to allow us to sift out probably true (based on the evidence we do have) from clearly wrong and just guessing.

In particular, the conclusion that we have no free will is very dubious because it conflicts with our perceived reality.

Does it? How would you expect to perceive reality if you were an incredibly complex information gathering and decision making biological machine?

Also, the assumption that our conscious awareness is entirely driven by material reactions may be far from the truth because we have no material definition for how conscious awareness manifests itself.

We have no complete 'definition for how conscious awareness manifests itself' at all. You are trying to ignore what we have learned, ignore the fact that no evidence exists for anything but the brain being involved and plump for the cop-out of "it must be magic" - which explains nothing at all. Then for an encore, you insist that it works by being neither deterministic nor random or some combination - hence making it a logically contradictory.

[bluehillside Retd.]

ekim,

The original issue, though, was 'Searching for God' rather than 'asserting alternative conjectures'.

But the exchanges you were addressing ("you two..." etc) were not about that.

The 'blissed out states' or 'blessed state' could well be what is meant by 'Heaven' which is where the Christian God is said to reside.

Seems unlikely. As I understand it, for the latter at least Christians think you have to be dead to get there.

Even if I am right...

About what?

I am sure that looking in the wrong direction produces a more entertaining discussion.  17,000 replies and 50,000 views perhaps testifies to this, so, Alan .... keep going.

Why would you encourage someone to keep going when all he does is the equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and parroting the same mistakes over and over again?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I am surprised that atheists here are ploughing on with the old tosh that logic and science =atheism.

No atheists here have done that.

[ekim]

But the exchanges you were addressing ("you two..." etc) were not about that.

I was suggesting that 'looking in the wrong direction' was related to the topic of 'Searching for God'.

Seems unlikely. As I understand it, for the latter at least Christians think you have to be dead to get there.

Then perhaps it's time for them to consider the prospect of being alive to get there.

About what?

... about looking in the right direction e.g. inwards rather than outwards.

Why would you encourage someone to keep going when all he does is the equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and parroting the same mistakes over and over again?

I was being facetious, but perhaps there is another way to teach a parrot.  At the moment it is a bit like an irresistible force meeting an immoveable object.

[Alan Burns]

How would you expect to perceive reality if you were an incredibly complex information gathering and decision making biological machine?

A biological machine would be incapable of conscious perception or decision making - it could only react.

[Gordon]

A biological machine would be incapable of conscious perception or decision making - it could only react.

Clearly not, albeit you aren't always noticeably perceptive.

[Stranger]

A biological machine would be incapable of conscious perception or decision making...

How do you know?

...it could only react.

In what way is decision making not a reaction?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

A biological machine would be incapable of conscious perception or decision making - it could only react.

Wrong.

As you just ignore the evidence that explains why you're wrong though, I see little point in repeating it. Let's just hope you don't get to persuade young people with your wilful nonsense. 

[Alan Burns]

How do you know?

In what way is decision making not a reaction?

Conscious decision making is driven by human free will.  It is not an automated reaction, and I am not an automated biological robot.

[Stranger]

Conscious decision making is driven by human free will.  It is not an automated reaction, and I am not an automated biological robot.

He asserted...     

[floo]

We might all be characters in a sophisticated computer game, our actions being directed by the operator.

[torridon]

Conscious decision making is driven by human free will.  It is not an automated reaction, and I am not an automated biological robot.

How would you know ?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

No atheists here have done that.

Could you please clarify these then.

How does somebody allegedly committing NPF help your case?
Doesn't your argument basically proceed from materialism?
Haven't you changed the definition of Emergence to exclude novelty not dependent on a previous level of organisation in favour of MORE of a previous level of organisation?

[Stranger]

How does somebody allegedly committing NPF help your case?

The negative proof fallacy is a logical fallacy that has nothing to do with science or atheism.

Doesn't your argument basically proceed from materialism?

See all the hundreds of answers you've already been given every time you raise this nonsense.

Haven't you changed the definition of Emergence to exclude novelty not dependent on a previous level of organisation in favour of MORE of a previous level of organisation?

In English?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

In English?

Haven't you changed the definition of Emergence to exclude novelty which is not dependent on a previous level of organisation in favour of MORE of a previous level of organisation?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Could you please clarify these then.

That "then" is a non sequitur. Your subsequent questions aren't about equating atheism with science at all.

How does somebody allegedly committing NPF help your case?

It "helps my case" inasmuch as an argument someone has attempted for "God" is a bad one. No more, no less.

Doesn't your argument basically proceed from materialism?

Depends which argument, but no - if you want to demonstrate your assertions using a non-materialistic method then just tell us what it is.

Haven't you changed the definition of Emergence to exclude novelty not dependent on a previous level of organisation in favour of MORE of a previous level of organisation?

No. "Emergence" is "dependent on a previous level of organisation" as you put it. That's what the word means.

[wigginhall]

Conscious decision making is driven by human free will.  It is not an automated reaction, and I am not an automated biological robot.

This is just guesswork, dressed up as assertions,  containing multiple vacuities.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

This is just guesswork, dressed up as assertions,  containing multiple vacuities.

Yeah, but apart from that though...

Wouldn't it be nice if just for once AB showed up and said something like, "OK, I've actually reviewed all the logic and evidence ranged against me and I still think it to be wrong for the following reasons..." or some such. As it stands though, he's a bit like someone outside the Large Hadron Collider at CERN saying, "You know, this Higgs-Boson thing really doesn't make sense to me, so instead my conjecture about gnomes must be correct".

Why he thinks his deeply irrational personal opinion on the matter should be taken seriously is anyone's guess, but there it is nonetheless. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No. "Emergence" is "dependent on a previous level of organisation" as you put it. That's what the word means.

A bit too much emphasis on the previous level of organisation whereas an emergent property is one not found at the previous level of organisation.

It is no good saying that an emergent property is just more complex than the previous level of organisation since the previous and new levels are both complex and therefore complexity itself has not emerged.

Wetness would be an emergent property based on water molecules, sure, but only found when a certain number is reached.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

A bit too much emphasis on the previous level of organisation whereas an emergent property is one not found at the previous level of organisation.

That's not what you asked though, which was: "Haven't you changed the definition of Emergence to exclude novelty not dependent on a previous level of organisation in favour of MORE of a previous level of organisation?".

Emergent properties do depend on their constituent parts - it's just that those parts do not themselves have the characteristics of the emergent property.

It is no good saying that an emergent property is just more complex than the previous level of organisation since the previous and new levels are both complex and therefore complexity itself has not emerged.

Yes it has. Try Stephen Johnson's Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software to get you started.

Wetness would be an emergent property based on water molecules, sure, but only found when a certain number is reached.

But regardless of the number of molecules none of them individually are "wet". That's the point. Whether it takes two or two bajillion of those molecules for wetness to emerge is for this purpose neither here nor there.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Emergent properties do depend on their constituent parts - it's just that those parts do not themselves have the characteristics of the emergent property.

Yes it has. Try Stephen Johnson's Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software to get you started.

Then I believe we are in sweet agreement.

I don't need starting thank you since I have been following this for several years through the New Scientist when Mr Johnson may still have been in grade school.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Then I believe we are in sweet agreement.

I don't need starting thank you since I have been following this for several years through the New Scientist when Mr Johnson may still have been in grade school.

Given your mistakes so far, perhaps you should have read a little more carefully?

Either way though, are we now supposed just to forget that you tried your false "you say science = atheism" claim again or what?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Given your mistakes so far, perhaps you should have read a little more carefully?

Either way though, are we now supposed just to forget that you tried your false "you say science = atheism" claim again or what?

Your mistake is your over emphasis on the previous layer.
Emergent properties are Novelties inexplicable in terms of the previous level of organisation this gives a completely different meaning to the term dependence.

This tends to cause sphincteral oscillation in hard arsed reductionists.

I credit you with the nous to catch my drift on this one.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Your mistake is your over emphasis on the previous layer.

There was no "over emphasis" - as ever, that's just something you made up then pretended you hadn't said once you were corrected.

Emergent properties are Novelties inexplicable in terms of the previous level of organisation...

Wrong again. They are "explicable".

...this gives a completely different meaning to the term dependence.

No it doesn't. An ant colony is "dependent" on the fact that there are lots of ants.

This tends to cause sphincteral oscillation in hard arsed reductionists.

Keep taking the tablets.

I credit you with the nous to catch my drift on this one.

You were "drifting" in the wrong direction – I just corrected you is all.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

There was no "over emphasis" - as ever, that's just something you made up then pretended you hadn't said once you were corrected.

Wrong again. They are "explicable".
.

They may be explicable but not in terms applicable to the previous level of organisation. Something you have already agreed to.
For example wetness is not applicable to x number of molecules but is applicable to the next level of organisation which is Y molecules. Novelty is therefore introduced into the system. This is completely at odds with reductionism.