Searching for GOD...

[wigginhall]

It is your own (and some others') interpretation of "free" which is causing so much confusion.
A physically determined choice is not really a choice but an unavoidable reaction.
A consciously determined choice can only be deemed a real choice if the conscious property is not entirely physical.  If conscious awareness is just a physically determined "emergent property" then there is no choice - just an unavoidable reaction.
So if everything is physically determined, all is just reaction and freedom has no meaning.
So my freedom to make conscious choices must derive from something non physical, otherwise it is just reaction.

By gum, I think you're getting there.

[Nearly Sane]

It is your own (and some others') interpretation of "free" which is causing so much confusion.
A physically determined choice is not really a choice but an unavoidable reaction.
A consciously determined choice can only be deemed a real choice if the conscious property is not entirely physical.  If conscious awareness is just a physically determined "emergent property" then there is no choice - just an unavoidable reaction.
So if everything is physically determined, all is just reaction and freedom has no meaning.
So my freedom to make conscious choices must derive from something non physical, otherwise it is just reaction.

Given that you have been asked many many many many many times  how something might be 'free' and not somehow determined or random, and you havene provided anything this seems either as if you read no posts or are lying. And as said many many many many times putting in physical changes nothing. Why is it that you don't read posts or lie, Alan?

[Nearly Sane]

By gum, I think you're getting there.

Well he would be if he dropped the word physically which adds nothing. Note this was pointed out to Alan many many many many times, mist notably by Some Kind of Stranger but Alan has so far ignored this, despite it being pointed out many many many many times that he is ignoring it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It is your own (and some others') interpretation of "free" which is causing so much confusion.

I’m only using your ever more convoluted “explanations”, but let’s see shall we?

A physically determined choice is not really a choice but an unavoidable reaction.

And you fell at the first hurdle. What do you mean here by “really”? You imply “not bound by cause and effect”, which is (yet another) logical fallacy in which the premise and the conclusion are the same thing.

A consciously determined choice can only be deemed a real choice if the conscious property is not entirely physical.

You failed again with the hanging undefined “real”, committed a non sequitur to follow and finished with both an argumentum ad consequentiam and the fallacy of reification (what is this supposed “non physical” you just assumed to exist?).

Four fallacies in one sentence? Even for you that’s going it old son.

If conscious awareness is just a physically determined "emergent property" then there is no choice - just an unavoidable reaction.

Ultimately yes, though as torri explained to you choices are made in response to stimuli – hungry people will eat for example.

So if everything is physically determined, all is just reaction and freedom has no meaning.

Where on earth has “meaning” just come from, and what has it to do with anything?

So my freedom to make conscious choices must derive from something non physical, otherwise it is just reaction.

Only if you wrongly assume “freedom” to mean, “free from cause and effect”.

I asked you a while back several times the same question but you kept running away from it. Do you not even know what logical fallacies entail, or do you understand them but for some reason think them to be valid when you alone rely on them?

[Alan Burns]

Yes, that is probably right.  All experience is fabrication of mind, including our sense of self. Here is a blog post by Sam Harris on the illusion of self :

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-illusion-of-the-self2

In the West we have been misled by centuries, nay millenia, of JudeoChristian teaching on the soul and we find it hard to shake off.  Buddhism by contrast has been way more insightful in these matters.

So not only is our free will an illusion, but our self too!
It is truly amazing the lengths some can go to to avoid accepting the existence of God and the human soul.

[Alan Burns]

Well he would be if he dropped the word physically which adds nothing. Note this was pointed out to Alan many many many many times, mist notably by Some Kind of Stranger but Alan has so far ignored this, despite it being pointed out many many many many times that he is ignoring it.

NS, if you look back, I have answered this many, many times, but for some unknown reason you can't accept the difference between physical determination and conscious will.

[Nearly Sane]

NS, if you look back, I have answered this many, many times, but for some unknown reason you can't accept the difference between physical determination and conscious will.

No, you haven't, Alan, and you have asserted a difference and i note once again, you have chosen to put in the word physical despite its explained irrelevance. Why is that? Why after all this time do you continue to ignore the issue?

[Alan Burns]

No, you haven't, Alan, and you have asserted a difference and i note once again, you have chosen to put in the word physical despite its explained irrelevance. Why is that? Why after all this time do you continue to ignore the issue?

As I see it:
Physical determination involves an endless chain of cause and effect events - there is no causal event.
Spiritual determination has its cause rooted in the conscious will of the human soul which can interact with the physical elements of the brain to induce acts of human free will..

[Nearly Sane]

As I see it:
Physical determination involves an endless chain of cause and effect events - there is no causal event.
Spiritual determination has its cause rooted in the conscious will of the human soul which can interact with the physical elements of the brain to induce acts of human free will..

how lovely! And again how empty of what you mean by free being somehow different from determinism(and I note how you once again ignored  the point about inserting the word physical changes nothing) and/or random.

You know given that the point of the uselessness of inserting the word physical was raised in the post you replied to, yet again I ask are you just not reading things or being dishonest?

[torridon]

So not only is our free will an illusion, but our self too!
It is truly amazing the lengths some can go to to avoid accepting the existence of God and the human soul.

You've got that the wrong way round. To believe in Gods and souls, there needs to be some justification, some evidence to warrant them.  It's not cool to go around believing stuff for no reason.

[Alan Burns]

how lovely! And again how empty of what you mean by free being somehow different from determinism(and I note how you once again ignored  the point about inserting the word physical changes nothing) and/or random.

You know given that the point of the uselessness of inserting the word physical was raised in the post you replied to, yet again I ask are you just not reading things or being dishonest?

Can you not see the relevance of the word "physical"?  I have illustrated many times that in a totally deterministic physical world with no outside influences, physical chains of cause and effect  can have no definitive causal event apart from the Big Bang.  So to have any form of conscious control or manipulation of events, the origin of this control must be from outside these physical chains of cause and effect.  Otherwise everything just involves inevitable reactions to previous physical events.

[Nearly Sane]

Can you not see the relevance of the word "physical"?  I have illustrated many times that in a totally deterministic physical world with no outside influences, physical chains of cause and effect  can have no definitive causal event apart from the Big Bang.  So to have any form of conscious control or manipulation of events, the origin of this control must be from outside these physical chains of cause and effect.  Otherwise everything just involves inevitable reactions to previous physical events.

Which doesn't matter in trying to explain in a logically coherent way what you mean by 'free' and how something can be not either deterministic, random or some combination of them both.

[torridon]

Can you not see the relevance of the word "physical"?  I have illustrated many times that in a totally deterministic physical world with no outside influences, physical chains of cause and effect  can have no definitive causal event apart from the Big Bang.  So to have any form of conscious control or manipulation of events, the origin of this control must be from outside these physical chains of cause and effect.  Otherwise everything just involves inevitable reactions to previous physical events.

Can you not see that the word 'physical' is irrelevant ?  Whether prior events are 'physical' or not is irrelevant to the fundamental logic of the notion of freedom in the context of choice. A new event is either a function of previous causal events or it is not in which case it is a random event.  Whether they were 'physical events' is irrelevant.

[Alan Burns]

Can you not see that the word 'physical' is irrelevant ?  Whether prior events are 'physical' or not is irrelevant to the fundamental logic of the notion of freedom in the context of choice. A new event is either a function of previous causal events or it is not.  Whether they were 'physical events' is irrelevant.

You are stuck in the logic of physical determination.
Of course there is a cause to all physical events in this universe, but the question is where these causes derive from.  In most cases the cause will be a previous physical event.  But in order for control and manipulation to occur, the cause must derive from the originator of the control - the conscious mind of the controller.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You are stuck in the logic of physical determination.

Are you not reading the explanations you're being given of why the word "physical" is irrelevant?

If something is determined then it's determined. Whether you call the determinism physical, non-physical or smokey bacon flavour makes no difference whatever to that basic fact.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You are stuck in the logic of physical determination.

What other logic is there?

You seem to be in thrall to the odd notion that to be “real” decision-making must be other than constrained by cause and effect. Having decided on this, you then conclude that to make this possible there must also be a “non-physical”. On its own, that would be just another reliance on a logical fallacy – the argumentum ad consequentiam.

You then make matters even worse though by telling us that this non-physical world of yours is also deterministic, only presumably it sort of isn’t. Or is. Or something.

Here’s the thing though: if you want to assert into existence a non-physical but still call it deterministic, then it’s deterministic. Full stop. You’ve just repeated the position you didn’t like for physical determinism but expressed it with a different but irrelevant qualifying adjective.

On the other hand, if you think this “non-physical” of yours isn’t deterministic, then it isn’t deterministic. Full stop.   

Which means it’s random.

As the non-physical is your conjecture entirely it’s up to you to tell us whether you want to make it deterministic or not, but what you don’t get to do is to ignore the problem by implying a sort of half-way, kind of deterministic but kind of not deterministic as the mood takes you.

Sorry, but there it is.

Incidentally, as you seem to have missed it yet again here’s the question you keep avoiding one more time. I’ll even put it in caps for you if that helps:

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE TERM “LOGICAL FALLACY” MEANS AND, IF YOU DO, DOES YOUR RELIANCE ON THEM IMPLY THAT YOU THINK THAT A FALSE ARGUMENT SOMEHOW BECOMES A GOOD ONE WHEN YOU HAPPEN TO LIKE ITS OUTCOME?

[torridon]

You are stuck in the logic of physical determination.

No such thing as physical determination.

The relevant concept is determinism and it doesn't come in flavours, physical and non physical, pink or blue, strawberry or chocolate.  You are just inventing a spurious dichotomy physical/non physical to evade engaging the concept.

[torridon]

Of course there is a cause to all physical events in this universe, but the question is where these causes derive from.  In most cases the cause will be a previous physical event.  But in order for control and manipulation to occur, the cause must derive from the originator of the control - the conscious mind of the controller.

There is no evidence to support the notion that conscious minds are not a product of the 'physical' universe.  This is just made-up stuff.

[wigginhall]

AB likes his pretty circles, conscious control, conscious mind, not determined, therefore God, blah blah blah. 

[Alan Burns]

There is no evidence to support the notion that conscious minds are not a product of the 'physical' universe.  This is just made-up stuff.

So where is the evidence to show how conscious awareness "emerges" from physical brain activity? 
All we have is:
Physical brain activity takes place during conscious awareness.
We can't physically detect anything else

These do not show how conscious awareness takes place, nor do they define what conscious awareness is.

The nature of our conscious awareness, together with our ability to wilfully drive our thought processes and actions are evidence that there is something more than just the physical nature of events we can detect.  Something which can't be defined in physical terms.  It is not merely guesswork to attribute these properties to the human soul.  It is affirming that human scientific discoveries have not been able to show that the soul does not exist, and there is no scientific reason to presume that the religions of the human race are wrong in believing in the concept of the human soul.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

What other logic is there?

Have you considered just how the concept of logic can exist in our human awareness if our brains are entirely driven by endless chains of physically determined events with no means of manipulating these events?  To become aware of any logical concept requires the ability to drive our own thought processes to discover the logic.  An entirely physical brain would only be able to react.  Logical discoveries are not reactions, but consciously driven thought processes.

[Gordon]

So where is the evidence to show how conscious awareness "emerges" from physical brain activity? 
All we have is:
Physical brain activity takes place during conscious awareness.
We can't physically detect anything else

These do not show how conscious awareness takes place, nor do they define what conscious awareness is.

The nature of our conscious awareness, together with our ability to wilfully drive our thought processes and actions are evidence that there is something more than just the physical nature of events we can detect.  Something which can't be defined in physical terms.  It is not merely guesswork to attribute these properties to the human soul.  It is affirming that human scientific discoveries have not been able to show that the soul does not exist, and there is no scientific reason to presume that the religions of the human race are wrong in believing in the concept of the human soul.

Almost too many fallacies here to list here, Alan, although it is nice to see the NPF getting a wee look in for a change. You seem to have conjured up the theological equivalent of phlogiston - so well done you!

[torridon]

So where is the evidence to show how conscious awareness "emerges" from physical brain activity? 
All we have is:
Physical brain activity takes place during conscious awareness.
We can't physically detect anything else

These do not show how conscious awareness takes place, nor do they define what conscious awareness is.

The nature of our conscious awareness, together with our ability to wilfully drive our thought processes and actions are evidence that there is something more than just the physical nature of events we can detect.  Something which can't be defined in physical terms.  It is not merely guesswork to attribute these properties to the human soul.  It is affirming that human scientific discoveries have not been able to show that the soul does not exist, and there is no scientific reason to presume that the religions of the human race are wrong in believing in the concept of the human soul.

Introducing a soul into the equation merely introduces more confusion than it clears.  Not least among which, there is no real definition for soul; there is no detail on its substance, its provenance, its temperature, properties or speed, no discussion on how it gets connected to bodies and how it remains attached or how it communicates with a brain if it is immaterial, how other non human animals seem to get by just fine without this soul thing.  All these are extra problems that a soul introduces for an explanatory framework to deal with; all this incurred, apparently out of an unwillingness to accept the rather obvious, that neural correlates signify actual causation, and not just some frightfully improbable coincidence.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

So where is the evidence to show how conscious awareness "emerges" from physical brain activity? 
All we have is:
Physical brain activity takes place during conscious awareness.
We can't physically detect anything else

These do not show how conscious awareness takes place, nor do they define what conscious awareness is.

So many mistakes in so few words!

First, it’s yet another example of your fondness for fallacious thinking – in this case the argument from personal incredulity.

Second, we have analogues for the brain on vastly simpler levels (like termite colonies) that precisely and unequivocally show emergence to be a genuine phenomenon – the whole is demonstrably greater than the sum of the parts. If you think of individual termites as neurons and the pheromone trails they leave as synapses, you have the basic building blocks of a brain. How emergence works is an interesting topic, but it's irrelevant to the observable fact that it does work. However much or little information we have about the "how", that says nothing whatever about the fact of the underlying model. 

Third, as much as you may assert it you have no argument of any kind to demonstrate that there’s something unique or special about consciousness that would exempt it from the generalised principle of emergence.

Fourth, as it happens far more is known about consciousness than you realise, and new discoveries about it from neuroscience in particular are happening all the time. If ever those findings contradicted the model of emergence that model would be amended or junked. 

So far though, none have.

Fifth, the alternative your offer (“soul”) collapses in a heap of incoherence and contradictions the moment you try to investigate it. There’s no definition, no details of content or methods, no means of detection, no resolution to the determined/not determined mess, no anything.

And yet, apparently with a straight face, you presume to think that “soul” explains anything?

Seriously?

Seriously though? 

The nature of our conscious awareness, together with our ability to wilfully drive our thought processes and actions are evidence that there is something more than just the physical nature of events we can detect.

Flat wrong for the reasons that have been explained to you countless times, but that you just ignore.

Something which can't be defined in physical terms.  It is not merely guesswork to attribute these properties to the human soul.

Of course it is. In what possible way is it different from guessing?

It is affirming that human scientific discoveries have not been able to show that the soul does not exist,…

That’s called the negative proof fallacy. See “Russell’s teapot” for further particulars.

It hasn’t been shown not to exist for two reasons:

- first, it’s a logically impossible goal. You can’t demonstrate that any such conjecture doesn’t exist;

- second, the claim “soul” is incoherent. Unless you can say anything about it, it’s just white noise. That is, there’s nothing to investigate let alone to prove or disprove. 

…and there is no scientific reason to presume that the religions of the human race are wrong in believing in the concept of the human soul.

That’s just repeated the same mistake.

Oh, and science can show “the religions of the human race” to be wrong when those religions make scientific claims.

Have you any idea how far out of your depth you are here Alan? 

Anything?

By the way, as you seem to have missed the question yet again here it is one more time both in caps and in a larger typeface to see whether that helps:

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE TERM “LOGICAL FALLACY” MEANS AND, IF YOU DO, DOES YOUR RELIANCE ON THEM IMPLY THAT YOU THINK THAT A FALSE ARGUMENT SOMEHOW BECOMES A GOOD ONE WHEN YOU HAPPEN TO LIKE ITS OUTCOME?

[Alan Burns]

Introducing a soul into the equation merely introduces more confusion than it clears.  Not least among which, there is no real definition for soul; there is no detail on its substance, its provenance, its temperature, properties or speed, no discussion on how it gets connected to bodies and how it remains attached or how it communicates with a brain if it is immaterial, how other non human animals seem to get by just fine without this soul thing.  All these are extra problems that a soul introduces for an explanatory framework to deal with; all this incurred, apparently out of an unwillingness to accept the rather obvious, that neural correlates signify actual causation, and not just some frightfully improbable coincidence.

How can you claim that neural correlates signify actual causation?  Correlation does not mean causation.  You need to define the cause of neural activity itself to determine the source of causation.  But if you insist that all is physically determined, you will find no defining cause - just lots of pre determined physical reactions.  So to comply with your scenario, every key I have ever typed on this forum was pre destined since the beginning of time.  If you really believe this, the phrase "personal optimism" comes to mind.  Can you not see that every poster on the forum has the freedom to type what they consciously wish to type?  Or do you wish to stick to your theory that is is all automated in the sub conscious mind?