Searching for GOD...

[Gordon]

Your soul is a free spirit, free to drive your conscious awareness wherever it chooses.  God wants your soul to turn towards Him, but of its own free will.  God has given plenty of pointers, but you are free to ignore them if you so wish.  And the Devil also has influence to tempt you away from God, and the Devil's most powerful weapon is to convince you that it does not exist.

So, in my case, and since I'm sure you've used the phrase 'God-given soul' before, is it my 'soul' that rejects 'God' (and the Devil) or is it 'me'?

You seem to have contrived a false dichotomy here: that there is a 'me' and then there is my 'soul', where if the latter is some sort of divine spark then it is somehow distinguishable from the rest of 'me' - but is in my case this 'soul' is utterly hopeless in terms of influencing my thinking as regards 'turning towards' this God of yours, so much so that if I have one (which I doubt) it is redundant, where my not having one at all better fits the situation. Your use of 'free' is also problematic, as has been pointed out to you numerous times.

A more pragmatic approach then is that there is just 'me' (with no hidden ineffective or undetectable divine extras), especially since your case for this 'soul' is incoherent wishful thinking (with assorted fallacies added into the mix). 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Your soul is a free spirit, free to drive your conscious awareness wherever it chooses.  God wants your soul to turn towards Him, but of its own free will.  God has given plenty of pointers, but you are free to ignore them if you so wish.  And the Devil also has influence to tempt you away from God, and the Devil's most powerful weapon is to convince you that it does not exist.

I sincerely hope you never have a position of authority over children and attempt to spread this unmitigated and unpleasant nonsense.

[torridon]

All intelligent humans have the capacity to believe in God.  Whether they invoke this ability would appear to be a personal choice.

Belief is not a choice.

Could you choose to believe that Paris is the capital of Japan ?

[torridon]

Your soul is a free spirit, free to drive your conscious awareness wherever it chooses.  God wants your soul to turn towards Him, but of its own free will.  God has given plenty of pointers, but you are free to ignore them if you so wish.

Assertion alert.

There may be plenty of reasons why humans believe in gods, indeed GodChecker lists 4000 gods. So, do we infer from this that there are 4000 gods trying to get through to homo sapiens all vying for our adoration, or do we infer that there is a god and the 4000 are variants or products of poor communication, or do we infer that there are no actual gods but the tendency to imagine gods is a widespread cognitive predisposition of the human psyche ?

My money is on the last option.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Just musing on AB’s latest eructation, and specifically about “the Devil” and his big party trick of convincing people that he doesn’t exist.

That’s it isn’t it – the reason that no matter how appalling AB’s reasoning and how robust the reasoning that undoes him, no matter how absent the evidence for anything he thinks to be real and how strong the evidence for explanations he dismisses out of hand it’s all the Devil’s work. 

People can explain to him why he’s wrong ‘til they’re blue in the face, can point him to warehouses full of evidence that falsify his dismissals and none of it will have the slightest effect. Why? Because it’s all the Devil’s doing.

Now he’s convinced himself that conjectures like “God” and “Devil” are real, he’s bomb-proof – he’ll never allow himself even to consider that he’s wrong, he cannot break free of his mind forg’d manacles because the entire meaning of his life would collapse if he did. The personal cost would be too high.

And the beauty of it? He actually thinks he has "the" truth, and that it’s set him "free"! It's astonishing wrongness and pernicious too if he passes it on to others, but in terms of trying to engage with him there simply is no point. The best anyone can do is to falsify his efforts in the hope that it may just help equip others to point and laugh when he and others of his ilk try his nonsense, but thinking he might come to his senses if necessarily a fool’s errand.

It's all a bit depressing, but there it is.   

[SusanDoris]

AB,

I sincerely hope you never have a position of authority over children and attempt to spread this unmitigated and unpleasant nonsense.

completely agree of course. This needs repeating daily to AB I think. I don't know how anyone can live ensnared, trapped, engulfed, in such a totally false, cloud-cuckoo land.

What will he do when his life is running out of time, especially if he is well aware of it? Will he pray to be saved? Will he welcome the end of this life in favour of some ghastly, cotton-woolly, smotheringly everyone-is-lovely heaven?

Give me reality every time.

[Alan Burns]

So, in my case, and since I'm sure you've used the phrase 'God-given soul' before, is it my 'soul' that rejects 'God' (and the Devil) or is it 'me'?

You seem to have contrived a false dichotomy here: that there is a 'me' and then there is my 'soul', where if the latter is some sort of divine spark then it is somehow distinguishable from the rest of 'me' - but is in my case this 'soul' is utterly hopeless in terms of influencing my thinking as regards 'turning towards' this God of yours, so much so that if I have one (which I doubt) it is redundant, where my not having one at all better fits the situation. Your use of 'free' is also problematic, as has been pointed out to you numerous times.

A more pragmatic approach then is that there is just 'me' (with no hidden ineffective or undetectable divine extras), especially since your case for this 'soul' is incoherent wishful thinking (with assorted fallacies added into the mix).

I apologise if my posts have been misleading, but the soul is "you".  The material components of your body are the biological machine that is controlled by and interacts with your spiritual self, your soul, providing your conscious awareness and ability to wilfully control certain parts of your body.  It is your soul which frees you from the deterministic control of nature allowing you (your soul) to choose its own destiny.

And regarding your accusation of wishful thinking, just consider what it is that has the power to implement wishful thoughts.  What is the source of wishful thinking?  Can a wishful thought really be invoked by a deterministically controlled biological robot?

[SusanDoris]

Can a wishful thought really be invoked by a deterministically controlled biological robot?

I don't know the scientific answer about robots, but yes, when you are talking about human beings, a species which has evolved to be what it is in a long unbroken chain since the first cells replicated.

[Gordon]

I apologise if my posts have been misleading, but the soul is "you".  The material components of your body are the biological machine that is controlled by and interacts with your spiritual self, your soul, providing your conscious awareness and ability to wilfully control certain parts of your body.  It is your soul which frees you from the deterministic control of nature allowing you (your soul) to choose its own destiny.

More fallacious assertion, and you've yet to provide any means of establishing this 'soul' from what is 'me'. I'm quite happy to be, if you will, a spiritual vacuum.

And regarding your accusation of wishful thinking, just consider what it is that has the power to implement wishful thoughts.  What is the source of wishful thinking?  Can a wishful thought really be invoked by a deterministically controlled biological robot?

Clearly yes: you say 'deterministically controlled biological robot' as if it was a bad thing!

[floo]

I wonder if deep down AB doubts about his faith? His posts seem to be getting increasingly desperate as if he is not only trying to persuade the rest of us to see it his way, but himself as well.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Can a wishful thought really be invoked by a deterministically controlled biological robot?

If the "robot" is sufficiently complex for conscious self-awareness to emerge, then yes.

[torridon]

And regarding your accusation of wishful thinking, just consider what it is that has the power to implement wishful thoughts.  What is the source of wishful thinking?  Can a wishful thought really be invoked by a deterministically controlled biological robot?

Try to answer that yourself - What is the source of wishful thinking?

Your ideas around soul and freewill are just null explanations for the origin and substance of desires and that doesn't cut it for people who are interested in understanding things. In your world, hopes and fears and wishes just are, and there is no analysis of their constitution.

To date, science has done remarkably well reducing matter to ever smaller and smaller constituents but we are only just beginning to tackle the phenomenological world of feelings and thoughts. But the pointers are there that place these things firmly within the cause and effect narrative - any desire or intention that you form is always a result of something prior, and it is the incalculable complexity of the pathways of cause and effect through a brain that give rise to the sense of freedom of choice.

[Sebastian Toe]

The Devil's most powerful weapon is to convince you that it does not exist.

There he is again!
How is he doing this convincing exactly?

[Alan Burns]

Try to answer that yourself - What is the source of wishful thinking?

Your ideas around soul and freewill are just null explanations for the origin and substance of desires and that doesn't cut it for people who are interested in understanding things. In your world, hopes and fears and wishes just are, and there is no analysis of their constitution.

To date, science has done remarkably well reducing matter to ever smaller and smaller constituents but we are only just beginning to tackle the phenomenological world of feelings and thoughts. But the pointers are there that place these things firmly within the cause and effect narrative - any desire or intention that you form is always a result of something prior, and it is the incalculable complexity of the pathways of cause and effect through a brain that give rise to the sense of freedom of choice.

Science has made marvellous progress in discovering how the material bits of the body all work together, but if it is only material and nothing else, there can be no origin for any spontaneous thought or action or desire, since it will all be pre determined by chains of materially induced events.  No matter how complex the network of material reactions, there can be no defining source.  Your conscious awareness has no control.  Nothing has control apart from the uncontrollable deterministic forces of nature.  So where is the "you" in all this?  Are you just an accidental blob of material being driven by the rest of the continuum of matter in this universe?  If you can offer any answer this you are demonstrating that there is a "you" in there somewhere controlling the shots.

[SusanDoris]

There he is again!
How is he doing this convincing exactly?

Good question!! I wonder about that too.

[Nearly Sane]

Good question!! I wonder about that too.

'psst, I don't exist! You haven't seen me, right!'

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Science has made marvellous progress in discovering how the material bits of the body all work together…

So far, so good…

…,but if it is only material and nothing else, there can be no origin for any spontaneous thought or action or desire, since it will all be pre determined by chains of materially induced events.

Depends what you mean by “spontaneous”, but essentially yes. I wonder if perhaps you’re finally getting it?

No matter how complex the network of material reactions, there can be no defining source.

Well, the “defining source” would be whatever the first cause and effect event was I suppose but if you actually mean here something like, “defining source outside of the chain of cause and effect” then that’s right. Keep going…   

Your conscious awareness has no control.  Nothing has control apart from the uncontrollable deterministic forces of nature.

Finally you’re making sense!

So where is the "you" in all this?

That is “you”. “Free” will is just what processes that are actually deterministic feel like.

Are you just an accidental blob of material being driven by the rest of the continuum of matter in this universe?

That “blob of material” mischaracterises the position, but essentially yes.

If you can offer any answer this you are demonstrating that there is a "you" in there somewhere controlling the shots.

Aw, and then it all fell apart with a non sequitur. Shame because you were doing quite well until then. The “you” that feels like it’s “calling the shots” doesn’t mean that it actually is doing that in the sense of somehow being outside the chain of cause and effect, which is itself an incoherent conjecture in any case.

[Alan Burns]

I wonder if deep down AB doubts about his faith? His posts seem to be getting increasingly desperate as if he is not only trying to persuade the rest of us to see it his way, but himself as well.

I just wish the English language was capable of expressing the true depth of my faith, Floo.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

If the "robot" is sufficiently complex for conscious self-awareness to emerge, then yes.

Material complexity does not generate self awareness.  We can only make machines imitate it.

[floo]

I just wish the English language was capable of expressing the true depth of my faith, Floo.

You may believe it all to be true, Alan, but you have no verifiable evidence on which to base your assertions. Some of us have had very different experiences, which has led us in the direction of unbelief.

[Nearly Sane]

I just wish the English language was capable of expressing the true depth of my faith, Floo.

It can, though , be used to express logically coherent positions, you might want to start with those, since up till now, you haven't managed that.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Material complexity does not generate self awareness.  We can only make machines imitate it.

A statement you cannot know to be true, and which the available evidence from the study of emergent properties suggests almost certainly isn't true.

Why then do you keep making this assertion?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I just wish the English language was capable of expressing the true depth of my faith, Floo.

Deeper than any reasoning or evidence there ever could be that showed that faith to be misplaced?

[wigginhall]

I just wish the English language was capable of expressing the true depth of my faith, Floo.

Sub-editor here: delete 'faith', insert 'ignorance'.   

[torridon]

Science has made marvellous progress in discovering how the material bits of the body all work together, but if it is only material and nothing else, there can be no origin for any spontaneous thought or action or desire, since it will all be pre determined by chains of materially induced events.  No matter how complex the network of material reactions, there can be no defining source.  Your conscious awareness has no control.  Nothing has control apart from the uncontrollable deterministic forces of nature.  So where is the "you" in all this?  Are you just an accidental blob of material being driven by the rest of the continuum of matter in this universe?  If you can offer any answer this you are demonstrating that there is a "you" in there somewhere controlling the shots.

Can you say where the 'you' is ? The soul concept has no detail to back it up anyway, so the choice is between a scientific rationale with some detail although no 'material definition' according to you, and a soul which has no actual definition at all.  Could you tell us for example where exactly your soul is located ? Could you tell us what it is made of and how it interacts with a body ? At least science is attempting to investigate the phenomenology of mind using empirical methods.  It is difficult to say exactly where a sense of self is located and that observation is consistent with it being an emergent phenomenon.  Could we say exactly where the intelligence that emerges in a bee swarm is located ?  Not easy is it, but 'not easy' is preferable to magic explanations which are really just barriers to understanding. I would regard the sense of self as a proprioceptive projection, and cases where people have an out of body experience are instances of that proprioception malfunctioning.