Searching for GOD...

[Sebastian Toe]

It may be possible, but it may be too late - I will do my best.

How would you go about it, assuming it was not 'too late'?

[Alan Burns]

It would be nice if you answered any of the questions instead of avoiding them yet again and trying to switch the burden of proof. I am not making a claim you are. Kindly address that and do not try tricks.

Well I tried to answer it by suggesting that the originating source for a conscious decision is the same source as that for an artist's concept of a creative work of art.  Implying that conscious decisions are not just formed from pre determined logical events in the physical brain cells.  You may argue that an artist's conceptual creation can be generated from the uncontrollable pre determined events in the brain cells, and if so we must agree to differ, as I think most artists would too.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

A big NO to this one.
The outcome of any computer software program is entirely defined by the logic of the software and the values of the data.  Different values or content of data input will produce differing results and this is the case with SIMS or any other piece of man made computer software.  The SIMS software was designed to generate virtual cities, and this is what it does.

Still wrong. Sim City was written “top down” rather than as an evolving programme (which also exist by the way). It’s a complex game with lots of interacting agents programmed to react to each other and to other stimuli in predictable ways. The results though are little emergent, self-organising systems. It’s no good just saying it “was designed to generate virtual cities, and this is what it does“ as if that in some way removes the the fact of the ensuing emergence. In short, the results are more complex than anything written by the programmer. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, just as it is in, say, termite mounds with air ventilation features even though no termite is "programmed" to know anything about air ventilation..

If you want to talk about emergence – and for that matter dismiss it out of hand as the prevailing model for consciousness – then you really need to understand something about it.

Incidentally, any news yet on why you thinks it's OK to dismiss emergence as the most promising model for consciousness because it isn't "fully defined" yet you think it's fine to argue for "soul" that you freely tell us you cannot fully define either?

[ekim]

Looking at human history, a conscious desire to find God or a spiritual source of things would appear to be a natural part of our human nature, and something difficult to explain in logical scientific terms.  It certainly sets us apart from other animal species.  The modern secular trend seems to want to deliberately ignore this built in desire, but in doing so they would be reducing themselves to being just another species of animal with no spiritual attributes.

It is debatable whether the desire to find a divinity is part of human nature.  It is just as likely that cycles of desire are built up from either attraction to pleasure and happiness or avoidance of suffering and unhappiness.  When these desires are challenged by events beyond the understanding of humans a variety of gods are invented to represent those challenging forces so that they can be invoked or propitiated e.g. gods of volcanoes, war, fortune, power, love etc.  Having one god with 'omni' qualities as opposed to many gods with individual qualities doesn't alter the basis of such desires.  In fact it could intensify them e.g. the desire for a heaven or the fear of a hell.  However, if one assumes the validity of your God, how can you have free will if the end result of your religious practices is to surrender to your God's Will?  Surely you are bound by that Will aren't you?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Still wrong. Sim City was written “top down” rather than as an evolving programme (which also exist by the way). It’s a complex game with lots of interacting agents programmed to react to each other and to other stimuli in predictable ways. The results though are little emergent, self-organising systems. It’s no good just saying it “was designed to generate virtual cities, and this is what it does“ as if that in some way removes the the fact of the ensuing emergence. In short, the results are more complex than anything written by the programmer. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, just as it is, say, termite mounds with air ventilation features even though no termite is "programmed" to know anything about air ventilation..

If you want to talk about emergence – and for that matter dismiss it out of hand as the prevailing model for consciousness – then you really need to understand something about it.

I have personally written a computer search game in which the degree of difficulty in the search increases as the game progresses, meaning that the game becomes more challenging unless you make an early find.  It is the software itself which generates the increased complexity of the search, so the nature of the search can increase in complexity far beyond my original programmed logic.  But the point is that all this behaviour is precisely defined by my original software.

[Nearly Sane]

Well I tried to answer it by suggesting that the originating source for a conscious decision is the same source as that for an artist's concept of a creative work of art.  Implying that conscious decisions are not just formed from pre determined logical events in the physical brain cells.  You may argue that an artist's conceptual creation can be generated from the uncontrollable pre determined events in the brain cells, and if so we must agree to differ, as I think most artists would too.

I'm not arguing anything here. Again read what people post, and you might manage to stop misrepresenting it, or evading questions, or trying to shift the burden of proof.  Having a 'source' which you haven't defined doesn't even begin to address the question of how a decision can be made freely? How if a decision is free do you manage to make it? 

[Alan Burns]

... However, if one assumes the validity of your God, how can you have free will if the end result of your religious practices is to surrender to your God's Will?  Surely you are bound by that Will aren't you?

The point is that we always have free will of our own, and it is our conscious decision whether or not to comply with God's will.  I would always imagine that I am free to carry out my own will as well as God's will, as long as it does not conflict with His will.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I have personally written a computer search game in which the degree of difficulty in the search increases as the game progresses, meaning that the game becomes more challenging unless you make an early find.  It is the software itself which generates the increased complexity of the search, so the nature of the search can increase in complexity far beyond my original programmed logic.  But the point is that all this behaviour is precisely defined by my original software.

The “behaviour” might be, but the outcomes aren’t. That’s the point.

Imagine there were no termites and you invented a robot version of them. You could programme it with various behaviours (“if X, then Y” etc) with no concept at all of air conditioning, of farming fungus, of creating remote cemeteries etc and yet these things and many more would in all likelihood emerge just as they have for real termites.

That’s emergence, and that’s the model we have that best fits the data for how consciousness comes about. 

PS Still no word then on why you dismiss one explanation for not being “fully defined” but embrace another one that isn’t defined at all?

Can you see now why NS accuses you of dodging questions?

[Alan Burns]

I'm not arguing anything here. Again read what people post, and you might manage to stop misrepresenting it, or evading questions, or trying to shift the burden of proof.  Having a 'source' which you haven't defined doesn't even begin to address the question of how a decision can be made freely? How if a decision is free do you manage to make it?

As I have said, a free will decision is denoted "free" because it is free from the constraints of physically determined chains of events.  So I can make a conscious decision based upon what the conscious awareness of my human soul wants to do, not by what the pre determined physical events in my brain would invoke without my conscious override.  So I conclude that my soul is able to generate whatever is needed in my physical brain in order to implement its will - perhaps via interaction through quantum tunnelling which has been seen to occur in the brain during decision making events.

[Nearly Sane]

As I have said, a free will decision is denoted "free" because it is free from the constraints of physically determined chains of events.  So I can make a conscious decision based upon what the conscious awareness of my human soul wants to do, not by what the pre determined physical events in my brain would invoke without my conscious override.  So I conclude that my soul is able to generate whatever is needed in my physical brain in order to implement its will - perhaps via interaction through quantum tunnelling which has been seen to occur in the brain during decision making events.

This is still not getting anywhere bear a logically coherent definition, it is as you so often do merely repetition. This 'will' of the 'soul', how does it become the will? How is it 'free' in any way from determinism? Does it just appear? In which case it is random.

[Gordon]

Well I tried to answer it by suggesting that the originating source for a conscious decision is the same source as that for an artist's concept of a creative work of art.

Suggest away - but how about providing some reasoning (of the non-fallacious kind) in support of your suggestion.

Implying that conscious decisions are not just formed from pre determined logical events in the physical brain cells.

You're falling into the fallacy of division again.

You may argue that an artist's conceptual creation can be generated from the uncontrollable pre determined events in the brain cells, and if so we must agree to differ, as I think most artists would too.

Again you're falling into the fallacy of division: might it just be that the owners of some brains have more artistic ability than others?

[Alan Burns]

PS Still no word then on why you dismiss one explanation for not being “fully defined” but embrace another one that isn’t defined at all?

But my argument was not just that conscious awareness is not fully defined.  I believe I said it was impossible to define in material terms because there is no way a recipient of information can be defined by material reactions alone.

I know there is no physical definition for the awareness of the human soul, but for me the spiritual definition derived from the Christian bible is all I need.

[wigginhall]

AB is trying to flee from contingency, so he sets up a magical soul with magical properties - it can do things without a cause, like a rabbit from a hat.   

[Alan Burns]

This is still not getting anywhere bear a logically coherent definition, it is as you so often do merely repetition. This 'will' of the 'soul', how does it become the will? How is it 'free' in any way from determinism? Does it just appear? In which case it is random.

Please - it is NOT RANDOM
Can you not guide you own thoughts?
Where do you think this guidance emanates from?
It is either physically determined or spiritually determined - I leave you to choose.

[Nearly Sane]

But my argument was not just that conscious awareness is not fully defined.  I believe I said it was impossible to define in material terms because there is no way a recipient of information can be defined by material reactions alone.

I know there is no physical definition for the awareness of the human soul, but for me the spiritual definition derived from the Christian bible is all I need.

except the spitual definition then added a further level of logical incoherence, which again makes all of your points meaningless.

[Gordon]

As I have said, a free will decision is denoted "free" because it is free from the constraints of physically determined chains of events.

Why 'physically' - surely some events are mental, such as my thoughts in writing this sentence is response to one of yours.

So I can make a conscious decision based upon what the conscious awareness of my human soul wants to do, not by what the pre determined physical events in my brain would invoke without my conscious override.

How do you know that it is your 'soul' since you can't demonstrate you have a 'soul': in what ways does it differ from common or garden thinking (remembering that we all have the capacity to think odd thoughts)?

So I conclude that my soul is able to generate whatever is needed in my physical brain in order to implement its will - perhaps via interaction through quantum tunnelling which has been seen to occur in the brain during decision making events.

And have those detecting this also detected 'souls'?

You seem to be indulging in theobabble again.

[Nearly Sane]

Please - it is NOT RANDOM
Can you not guide you own thoughts?
Where do you think this guidance emanates from?
It is either physically determined or spiritually determined - I leave you to choose.

Alan, stop misrepresenting  what is said. I did not say it was random. I asked a question your continual misrepresentations because you do not have the courtesy to actually read posts is quite unpleasant.

How does the 'spiritual' (still a term without a logically coherent definition from you) will come about?


And again, why are you asking me questions about your claim?

On the question of guiding my thoughts, as has been pointed out before, if I guide my thought I will need a thought to do that, in order to have that thought I would need to have a further thought to guide that etc etc. Your concept creates an infinite regress for any thought  which is obviously logically incoherent

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But my argument was not just that conscious awareness is not fully defined.

Actually it was (what else have you to invalidate the evidence ranged against your for consciousness as an emergent property?) but, even if you did have other arguments, that wouldn’t remove the problem that there’s even less definition for “soul”. Why does you own argument not therefore apply equally to your own proposition?

Incidentally, don’t think for one moment by the way that being “not fully defined” is a good argument in any case. Lots of phenomena are not fully defined – gravity for example – but we have perfectly good models for them nonetheless.

I believe I said it was impossible to define in material terms because there is no way a recipient of information can be defined by material reactions alone.

First, no you didn’t. You just said that it’s “not fully defined” as if that was in some way relevant.

Second, that’s yet another non sequitur.

Third, you have no argument of any kind to suggest that a “recipient of information” cannot be defined in material terms. Your problem here is that you severely underestimate the scale of very large numbers, and you have no grasp of the phenomenon of emergence that occurs when those very large numbers of components interact in consistent ways. 

I know there is no physical definition for the awareness of the human soul…

There’s no definition for it of any kind, “physical" or otherwise. Nor is there any logic for it that isn’t hopelessly internally contradictory. Nor is there one scrap of one jot of one iota of evidence for it.

Apart from that though…

…but for me the spiritual definition derived from the Christian bible is all I need.

For you, I don’t doubt it. For me the definition of leprechauns in “My Big Book of Leprechaunology” is all I need too. 

Problem is though, neither of these beliefs provides a logical path from “true for me only” to “true for you too” – which I why your attempts at proselytising are doomed from the get go, at least when you try them on an audience possessed of critical faculties. Your grandson on the other hand is likely to be more vulnerable to them, at least for a few more years.

[floo]

One can only suppose AB is  so institutionalised in his perception of religion he cannot conceive there are different ways of looking at it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Incidentally AB, you also have a bad case of Vladism here. You post a mistake ("there's no logical argument for seeking gods" for example), myself and others take the time to correct you, then you post something else without reference either to the mistake or to the correction as if neither had happened. Often too you go quiet for a bit, then pop again to repeat the same mistake.

What do you think you're achieving with this behaviour?

So again, what properties do you think might emerge if you invented robotic termites with the same simple instructions as real termites?

[ippy]

A B, have you ever heard that saying involving digging?

Only it looks like you've arrived at that point, some considerable time back?

ippy.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Incidentally AB, you also have a bad case of Vladism here. You post a mistake ("there's no logical argument for seeking gods" for example), myself and others take the time to correct you,

No...What you do Hillside is what they call......consciousness without intelligence.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

If you want to talk about emergence – and for that matter dismiss it out of hand as the prevailing model for consciousness – then you really need to understand something about it.

No sniggering at the back there!

[Alan Burns]

You post a mistake ("there's no logical argument for seeking gods" for example

It is not a mistake.
I was just comparing the human race with every other species of animal, and no other animal shows any evidence of seeking God, which implies that the seeking of God is not a common attribute, and in terms of evolutionary theory there seems to be no perceivable survival attribute in wasting time contemplating the possibility of a non existent God.

So I suggest that the human attribute of being aware of God's existence is no accident, but a God given gift to enable us to find Him after the Fall.

[Gordon]

It is not a mistake.
I was just comparing the human race with every other species of animal, and no other animal shows any evidence of seeking God, which implies that the seeking of God is not a common attribute, and in terms of evolutionary theory there seems to be no perceivable survival attribute in wasting time contemplating the possibility of a non existent God.

So I suggest that the human attribute of being aware of God's existence is no accident, but a God given gift to enable us to find Him after the Fall.

Or it's those pesky brains again being able to think abstract (even if in some cases irrational) thoughts.