Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

There is interesting research on linguistic redundancy, and how the brain fills in gaps and stumbles all the time, so as to produce (fabricate) a smooth coherent stream of sound and meaning.   You can actually do this concretely, by recording some speech, and then deleting bits, and people don't notice the deletions.   

Or by reading something like this:

"It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

[torridon]

Interesting also is that the eye sees the world upside down, but to make sense of all our sensory inputs, the brain uses its capacity to invert the image. So our visual perception is in fact controlled by the brain even though we may be completely unaware of this.

Also nicely relevant here, the illusion of motion - why don't we see a series of juddery still images when watching TV, as that is what our eyes get  ?  Our brains don't believe that people could move in such a jerky way so it smooths the motion out before we become conscious of it.

[floo]

Wiggs,

Or by reading something like this:

"It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

You make a good point, I read that without a problem.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Floo,

You make a good point, I read that without a problem.

And yet AB would have us believe that our perceptions of reality and reality are the same thing 

[ippy]

Can no one see the irony in people making carefully thought out arguments to show that our perception of freedom to direct our thoughts is just an illusion?

You'd make a first class candidate for a job in R & D Alan, not quite covering the 'free thinking' aspects of course.

ippy

[ippy]

Also nicely relevant here, the illusion of motion - why don't we see a series of juddery still images when watching TV, as that is what our eyes get  ?  Our brains don't believe that people could move in such a jerky way so it smooths the motion out before we become conscious of it.

No, look up latent immage.

ippy

[Alan Burns]

it would help, Alan, if you actually addressed the arguments and didn't misrepresent people's position as you do here. You are portraying the argument as if people are saying thoughts are random.

No, the materialist argument implies that thoughts are just uncontrolled reactions to naturally occurring events in the brain.  I have never implied that thoughts are random in any scenario.

BTW any chance at all that you can deal with the infinite regress that your position creates?

The infinite regress argument only occurs in the materialist scenario, where everything has to have a cause, and each cause also has to have a cause.  In my scenario it is the soul which is the conscious perceiver of information - (no need for a further perceiver), and it is the soul which initiates and drives conscious thought and action (no need for a driver of the driver).

[Nearly Sane]

No, the materialist argument implies that thoughts are just uncontrolled reactions to naturally occurring events in the brain.  I have never implied that thoughts are random in any scenario.The infinite regress argument only occurs in the materialist scenario, where everything has to have a cause, and each cause also has to have a cause.  In my scenario it is the soul which is the conscious perceiver of information - (no need for a further perceiver), and it is the soul which initiates and drives conscious thought and action (no need for a driver of the driver).

Except the way you describe it exactly creates an infinite regress. As ever sticking the word materialist in has no effect here in terms of the logical issue which it would apoear you have no understanding of. If thoughts are contrilled, there must be a thought that chooses to control that thought which by your own position means that thought needs a thought to control it and so on ad infinitum .

[Alan Burns]

Except the way you describe it exactly creates an infinite regress. As ever sticking the word materialist in has no effect here in terms of the logical issue which it would appear you have no understanding of. If thoughts are controlled, there must be a thought that chooses to control that thought which by your own position means that thought needs a thought to control it and so on ad infinitum .

You seem to be implying that our thoughts are not controlled.
Yet I constantly get accused of personal incredulity.
So if I am just a blob of material being acted upon by the uncontrolled forces of nature, which part of this blob of material can be held responsible for the personal incredulity if there is nothing in control?  Or is it nature itself which is responsible?

[Nearly Sane]

You seem to be implying that our thoughts are not controlled.
Yet I constantly get accused of personal incredulity.
So if I am just a blob of material being acted upon by the uncontrolled forces of nature, which part of this blob of material can be held responsible for the personal incredulity if there is nothing in control?  Or is it nature itself which is responsible?

i am asking you to justify your model which creates an infinite regress. I suggest you try and deal with that.


As to the question of responsibility, that is a detailed discussion about how we talk and how we act, that is not dependent on your model or the flaws in it. It would be useful to understand though that language us fluid and is not prescriptive.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You seem to be implying that our thoughts are not controlled.

No, he's telling you that your conjecture "soul" creates an infinite regress problem. If you think consciousness requires a little man at the controls, then that little man requires another little man at his controls and so on endlessly. 

You can't just magic your way out of that by claiming the problem to be just a function of materialist thinking - if you want to apply special pleading for this "soul" to get it off the hook then you may as well have stopped with the brain of the conscious entity in the first place. "Soul" in other words explains nothing, 

[torridon]

So if I am just a blob of material being acted upon by the uncontrolled forces of nature, which part of this blob of material can be held responsible for the personal incredulity if there is nothing in control? 

Argumentum ad consequentiam.

Apart from which, the notion of responsibility flows from the notions of agency and control, and so inherits their fundamental flaws and limits too.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

No, he's telling you that your conjecture "soul" creates an infinite regress problem. If you think consciousness requires a little man at the controls, then that little man requires another little man at his controls and so on endlessly. 

It is only an infinite regress if you think in material terms.

In my conjecture the soul is the end recipient and the source of all conscious functionality.  There is no infinite regress.

I am in control.

[Shaker]

It is only an infinite regress if you think in material terms.

I don't know of any others.

I am in control.

I'd keep that one under your hat if I were you.

Still, you used the word conjecture* - that's progress of sorts.

* Synonyms: "Guess; speculation; surmise; fancy; notion; belief."

[floo]

I wonder how AB would react if it was discovered, beyond any doubt whatsoever, no god/afterlife exists, and when we die that is it, FINITO? Would he be shocked he had spent so much time believing a myth to be true.

Of course by the same token I might discover everything in the Bible is literally true, and I shall spend my afterlife in hell, WHOOPS!

[Shaker]

I wonder how AB would react if it was discovered, beyond any doubt whatsoever, no god/afterlife exists, and when we die that is it, FINITO? Would he be shocked he had spent so much time believing a myth to be true.

His entire worldview would be in ruins, utter ruins.

That's why there's so much effort and a great deal more than a touch of sweaty white-knuckle desperation that he puts into the preaching of his beliefs.

More than one person has noted that the fact that he's still here - despite nobody taking him seriously, let alone believing him - smacks of trying to convince himself as much as anybody else.

[floo]

His entire worldview would be in ruins, utter ruins.

That's why there's so much effort and a great deal more than a touch of sweaty white-knuckle desperation that he puts into the preaching of his beliefs.

With each post his beliefs seem less credible.

[torridon]

It is only an infinite regress if you think in material terms.

In my conjecture the soul is the end recipient and the source of all conscious functionality.  There is no infinite regress.

I am in control.

So this is how a soul is defined, as that thing, whatever it is, that destroys infinite regress, by being able, amongst other things, to think thoughts before it thought them, and to make choices on a basis that is free of any basis.  Maybe it could also therefore draw a square circle and lift a boulder that was too heavy for it to lift.

Better, imv, to start with the evidence, and try to understand it, rather than inventing fantastic nonsense to avoid putting in the effort.

[Shaker]

With each post his beliefs seem less credible.

Given how he started that's saying something.

[Maeght]

It is only an infinite regress if you think in material terms.

In my conjecture the soul is the end recipient and the source of all conscious functionality.  There is no infinite regress.

I am in control.

Glad to see you recognise this as conjecture. Seems like progress to me.

[Alan Burns]

His entire worldview would be in ruins, utter ruins.

That's why there's so much effort and a great deal more than a touch of sweaty white-knuckle desperation that he puts into the preaching of his beliefs.

More than one person has noted that the fact that he's still here - despite nobody taking him seriously, let alone believing him - smacks of trying to convince himself as much as anybody else.

My faith is considerably strengthened by the shallow logic of the materialist arguments which consign our freedom to consciously think and choose to be an illusion.  The reality of this freedom is manifest and is evidence of the spiritual power of the human soul.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It is only an infinite regress if you think in material terms.

Translation: “I have to conjecture “soul” to post rationalise my religious beliefs, only when the logic it would require collapses I gussy up my response of “but it’s magic innit?” with the term “spiritual””.

As torri notes, if you want to assert “spiritual” to get you off the hook of logic, then you may as well include spiritual four-sided triangles while you’re at it   

In my conjecture the soul is the end recipient and the source of all conscious functionality.  There is no infinite regress.

There’s only no infinite regress if you just ignore the problem in the hope it’ll go away.
 
Trouble is though, it doesn’t.
 

I am in control.

Surely you meant to say there that your little man at the controls is in control (or at least it would be if the conjecture wasn’t lying in very small pieces at your feet)?

[Nearly Sane]

My faith is considerably strengthened by the shallow logic of the materialist arguments which consign our freedom to consciously think and choose to be an illusion.  The reality of this freedom is manifest and is evidence of the spiritual power of the human soul.

You do have this habit of using pejorative terns such as 'shallow' in place of actually engaging in discussion of the points. The logic being used is just logic. It's not mere, shallow, materialist or mimsy-wimsy. Just logic.

Given that despite being asked hundreds of times about this concept of freedom, all you have provided is logically incoherent, asserting that it's manifest is assertion. I know you have often bewailed that you don't have time and space to put forward your actual case, but can I suggest that instead of wasting your time, and mine by writing posts like the one above, which are merely repeated assertions and do not address any of the points that have been made, that you post fewer but more detailed posts, where you can develop your case and engage with other's arguments rather than continually ignoring them?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

My faith is considerably strengthened by the shallow logic of the materialist arguments...

Translation: "I have no counter-arguments to the arguments that undo me so I'll call them "shallow" in the hope that that makes them go away."

...which consign our freedom to consciously think and choose to be an illusion.

That's called the argumentum ad consequentiam fallacy (with some fallacy of pejorative language thrown in) - a proper example of shallow thinking (or in fact of broken thinking).

The reality of this freedom is manifest and is evidence of the spiritual power of the human soul.

And he finishes with the unqualified, un-argued, un-evidenced assertion presumably to make himself feel better.   

The problem here Alan isn't that there aren't sound arguments that falsify you; rather it's that you're terrified of the consequences if you tried to engage with them and so you must - absolutely must - ignore them at all costs.

Sorry, but there it is. 

[floo]

AB's posts smack of desperation to me, maybe it isn't us he is trying to convince, but himself.