Searching for GOD...

[Robbie]

We'll have been transplanted somewhere else perhaps? New Heaven & New Earth, etc.
(Glad I won't be around then, scary.)

[torridon]

I am not ignoring scientific research.  I am drawing attention to its limitations.  And in doing so I am demonstrating my ability to freely choose to do this.  I am fully aware that any scientific model of physical brain functionality will inevitably rule out any concept of freedom.  The fact that we have the ability to make conscious choices is evidence that there is more than observable physical brain activity involved.

This post alone illustrate how contradictory your position is.  The last sentence contradicts the claim made in the first sentence.  The science indicates that we cannot make conscious choices and you are ignoring that. What we have discovered, is that we do not experience reality at all in real time and our awareness of a choice we have made follows slightly behind real time.  This might be hugely counterintuitive I agree, but it is what the evidence is saying, and it does make sense in the light of the understanding we have of the speeds of neural transmission and the complexity of neural networks.

Also, I don't buy your excuse that your science denial is just a recognition of its limitations.  We will never have full knowledge but that does not excuse us from engaging with the partial understandings we have garnered to date.  We don't fully understand gravity but that does not stop us from putting satellites into orbit. We don't fully understand quantum entanglement but that does not stop us from trying to build computers that employ quantum states. We learn, and we move on in the expectation that our learning will deepen in due course.  Your refusal to learn marks you out as a teacher's worst nightmare, the pupil who refuses to learn because he would rather preserve his simpler models of how the world works.  I guess there are many who keep one foot in the earlier world of our more primitive ancestors where nothing was comprehensible and everything was magical; but the price of moving on from living in caves and wearing goat skins has been to trade in that enchantment for deeper understanding and here you are now, an anachronism in the modern world trying to keep one foot in a world of magic by selectively denying just those portions of learning that give the lie to it.  Searching for God, on your terms, seems a very unholy business to me.

[SusanDoris]

Another super post, torridon.

[Shaker]

Agreed. That was a belter.

[Alan Burns]

This post alone illustrate how contradictory your position is.  The last sentence contradicts the claim made in the first sentence.  The science indicates that we cannot make conscious choices and you are ignoring that. What we have discovered, is that we do not experience reality at all in real time and our awareness of a choice we have made follows slightly behind real time.  This might be hugely counterintuitive I agree, but it is what the evidence is saying, and it does make sense in the light of the understanding we have of the speeds of neural transmission and the complexity of neural networks.

Also, I don't buy your excuse that your science denial is just a recognition of its limitations.  We will never have full knowledge but that does not excuse us from engaging with the partial understandings we have garnered to date.  We don't fully understand gravity but that does not stop us from putting satellites into orbit. We don't fully understand quantum entanglement but that does not stop us from trying to build computers that employ quantum states. We learn, and we move on in the expectation that our learning will deepen in due course.  Your refusal to learn marks you out as a teacher's worst nightmare, the pupil who refuses to learn because he would rather preserve his simpler models of how the world works.  I guess there are many who keep one foot in the earlier world of our more primitive ancestors where nothing was comprehensible and everything was magical; but the price of moving on from living in caves and wearing goat skins has been to trade in that enchantment for deeper understanding and here you are now, an anachronism in the modern world trying to keep one foot in a world of magic by selectively denying just those portions of learning that give the lie to it.  Searching for God, on your terms, seems a very unholy business to me.

Thanks for another well thought out response.

But I must draw your attention to my observation that any scientifically derived model of brain functionality will inevitably rule out any form of freedom.  Scientific investigations are limited to what can be perceived through our physical sense organs and man made equipment.  Such tools are incapable of detecting anything non physical, but this does not rule out the existence of non physical.  And the non physical may well be the facilitator of our freedom to choose, making it a reality rather than an illusion.

[wigginhall]

What is the non-physical?  Where is it?  How can I find it? 

[Shaker]

Scientific investigations are limited to what can be perceived through our physical sense organs and man made equipment.  Such tools are incapable of detecting anything non physical, but this does not rule out the existence of non physical.  And the non physical may well be the facilitator of our freedom to choose, making it a reality rather than an illusion.

A negative proof fallacy (or as good as) and a maybe.

Pretty dismal stuff, but entirely typical.

[torridon]

Thanks for another well thought out response.

But I must draw your attention to my observation that any scientifically derived model of brain functionality will inevitably rule out any form of freedom.  Scientific investigations are limited to what can be perceived through our physical sense organs and man made equipment.  Such tools are incapable of detecting anything non physical, but this does not rule out the existence of non physical.  And the non physical may well be the facilitator of our freedom to choose, making it a reality rather than an illusion.

If there is something that is non-physical, meaning it is undetectable, then there can be no evidence base justifying its existence and there is no way that it could impact on our lives. 'undetectable' in this sense equates to 'nothing' for all practical purposes, so your sentence could be written as :

Such tools are incapable of detecting nothing, but this does not rule out the existence of nothing.  And nothing may well be the facilitator of our freedom to choose, making it a reality rather than an illusion

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What is the non-physical?  Where is it?  How can I find it?

Can you provide the spin number of each of the greek categories of love? Or the Feynman diagram for the appreciation of Beethoven?

[Gordon]

Thanks for another well thought out response.

But I must draw your attention to my observation that any scientifically derived model of brain functionality will inevitably rule out any form of freedom.

That might just be you, Alan: your powers of observation may be less finely-tuned than you think they are - put simply, you could be wrong. Just out of interest do you agree that you could be wrong?

Scientific investigations are limited to what can be perceived through our physical sense organs and man made equipment.  Such tools are incapable of detecting anything non physical, but this does not rule out the existence of non physical.  And the non physical may well be the facilitator of our freedom to choose, making it a reality rather than an illusion.

In the absence of a device to detect non-physical phenomena that interacts with the physical then your 'observation' that there as such phenomena seems redundant for all practical purposes.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

A negative proof fallacy (or as good as)

I think you mean it is ''knocking on the door of an NPF''........a handy phrase which allows a non NPF to be turdpolished up into an actual NPF.

[floo]

Thanks for another well thought out response.

But I must draw your attention to my observation that any scientifically derived model of brain functionality will inevitably rule out any form of freedom.  Scientific investigations are limited to what can be perceived through our physical sense organs and man made equipment.  Such tools are incapable of detecting anything non physical, but this does not rule out the existence of non physical.  And the non physical may well be the facilitator of our freedom to choose, making it a reality rather than an illusion.

Have you considered that your observations, which seem conclusive to you might be in error, and you are barking up the wrong tree?

[Alan Burns]

A negative proof fallacy (or as good as) and a maybe.

Pretty dismal stuff, but entirely typical.

So I rejoice in the reality of my God given freedom which enables me to freely witness to God's existence.  How could I possibly do this if all my brain activity is entirely pre determined by physical chains of cause and effect over which I have no control?

[Sebastian Toe]

So I rejoice in the reality of my God given freedom which enables me to freely witness to God's existence.  How could I possibly do this if all my brain activity is entirely pre determined by physical chains of cause and effect over which I have no control?

...because it is an illusion. An illusion which you refuse to accept.
That was easy.
Next?

[Alan Burns]

...because it is an illusion. An illusion which you refuse to accept.
That was easy.
Next?

And would you claim that my conscious refusal to accept is also an illusion

[Sebastian Toe]

And would you claim that my conscious refusal to accept is also an illusion

The fact that you think it is a "concious decision". Yes.

[Alan Burns]

The fact that you think it is a "concious decision". Yes.

And what precisely is it that "thinks" it is a conscious decision?

[floo]

And what precisely is it that "thinks" it is a conscious decision?

Don't you ever seriously question your faith?

[Shaker]

Don't you ever seriously question your faith?

We know he doesn't. He's said so.

[floo]

One should always question one's position on matters of faith whether you are religious or an unbeliever, imo.

[Sebastian Toe]

And what precisely is it that "thinks" it is a conscious decision?

Your subconscious.

[wigginhall]

So I rejoice in the reality of my God given freedom which enables me to freely witness to God's existence.  How could I possibly do this if all my brain activity is entirely pre determined by physical chains of cause and effect over which I have no control?

It seems a daft question to me.  The brain does all kinds of wonderful stuff, such as dreaming, imagining, making up stories, so what?

[floo]

It seems a daft question to me.  The brain does all kinds of wonderful stuff, such as dreaming, imagining, making up stories, so what?

The brain is an incredible organ, the depths of its abilities may not as yet have been plumbed.

What AB doesn't seem to grasp is that whilst his brain appears to convincing him about the existence of his god and all he attributes to it, another person's brain is equally convincing when they believe something diametrically opposed to him. 

[torridon]

And what precisely is it that "thinks" it is a conscious decision?

It is you that thinks so; that doesn't validate any notion of internal magic souls inhabiting you.  It is the you that emerges from neural activity.  And that 'you' can easily get things wrong and be subject to illusions such as the ubiquitous false attribution of direct experience.

[wigginhall]

The brain is an incredible organ, the depths of its abilities may not as yet have been plumbed.

What AB doesn't seem to grasp is that whilst his brain appears to convincing him about the existence of his god and all he attributes to it, another person's brain is equally convincing when they believe something diametrically opposed to him.

It is an incredible organ, and it quite easily goes wrong.   All kinds of accidents and diseases can mess it up, above all, dementia, which can not only inhibit thinking but also personality.    Ah well,  AB is stuck in his incredulity, how can the earth be round, we'd fall off?