Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

Given you've ignored repeated requests to explain how this could possibly work it seems clear that you have no grasp of it either.

So when you come to account for how you have used God's amazing gift of free will, can you honestly say that you were never aware of it?

[Stranger]

I do not need to explain how it works when I can aptly demonstrate that it does work by consciously replying to your post.

This is actually quite surreal when you think about it. You've moved on from straightforward logical fallacies and simple baseless assertion, via attempts to redefine the language ('deterministic' doesn't mean the same thing if it's not physical) and now we have a kind of meta-assertion in which we are invited to believe the baseless assertion that your ability to make baseless assertions is actually evidence that your baseless assertions are true...

[Gordon]

So when you come to account for how you have used God's amazing gift of free will, can you honestly say that you were never aware of it?

Begging the question yet again, Alan.

Why don't just say 'God - like wow, man' and leave it at that.

[ippy]

So when you come to account for how you have used God's amazing gift of free will, can you honestly say that you were never aware of it?

You've no idea whether it's god's amazing gift or not, no one knows the answer to that and even you're not dim witted enough to think otherwise.

Necessarily kind regards ippy

[Alan Burns]

The conscious willpower of your soul would prevent you admitting something if you were a deterministic being?

You didn't even read what I said, let alone think about it, did you? The irony...     

Of course I read what you said.  And I am using my conscious willpower to reply by saying that you are not entirely controlled or determined by past events.  You have control through the God given power of your soul.

[Stranger]

Of course I read what you said.

You clearly did not.

You made the silly claim: But any act of admission must be initiated by my conscious free will - so in doing such an admission, I would be confirming the spiritual power of my God given soul.

At the end of my reply I asked you a question: If your mind was deterministic (which means the same thing whether you prefix it with 'physical' or not) what would prevent it from admitting something?

You replied: The conscious willpower of my soul

Are you still going to claim that you read and understood the question? If you did, you would be saying that a physically deterministic being would have a conscious soul but that said soul would prevent it from admitting anything.

Which would be bizarre gibberish even by your standards.

And I am using my conscious willpower to reply by saying that you are not entirely controlled or determined by past events.  You have control through the God given power of your soul.

Back to silly baseless assertion. Where is the logical analysis of human free will that you claimed to have done? Was that just a porky?

[floo]

Of course I read what you said.  And I am using my conscious willpower to reply by saying that you are not entirely controlled or determined by past events.  You have control through the God given power of your soul.

How you feel if it was proved beyond all doubt your god doesn't exist?

[torridon]

So when you come to account for how you have used God's amazing gift of free will, can you honestly say that you were never aware of it?

Multiple baseless implicit assertions with added intimidation, all bound up in a single sentence, my you really are a piece of work, Alan.  Check out my posting history and the answers are already there if your intention was really to enquire rather than intimidate. Clearly noone disputes that we have free will in the limited superficial compatibilist sense. I look at my potato plant and I am pleased that I have more degrees of freedom than it,  I can uproot and go to Luton tomorrow, my potato plant however remains stuck there.  My labrador enjoys a game of retrieving a thrown stick, but it is incapable of enjoying a string quartet or of starting an insurrection.  My apparent freedoms are far greater in range.  So much, so superficial.  None of my freedoms however extend to doing things that are conceptually illogical or impossible, we all live our lives within a framework of natural law that bounds what is conceptually valid. So I accept these hard facts of life, that I don't believe things that I don't believe, I cannot think a thought before I thought it, I do not want that which I do not want, I cannot make meaningful choices on a basis that is free of any meaningful basis, I cannot do something before I do it, I cannot travel backwards in time.  All these bizarre implications flow directly and consequentially from your claims and I reject them for the nonsense that they are and such is the honest thing to do despite any mythic threats from your mythic god to indulge unreason over reason.

[Alan Burns]

At the end of my reply I asked you a question: If your mind was deterministic (which means the same thing whether you prefix it with 'physical' or not) what would prevent it from admitting something?

You replied: The conscious willpower of my soul

I was just confirming that the conscious willpower of the soul has overall control, and can do this if it wished to do so.  Spiritual control is not the same as physically deterministic.

[Stranger]

I was just confirming that the conscious willpower of the soul has overall control, and can do this if is wished to do so.

Just random words, then - not actually a response to the post you quoted?

Spiritual control is not the same as physically deterministic.

Neither is it the same as anything with a defined meaning - just empty words. The word 'physically' is irrelevant; deterministic is deterministic and the only alternative is randomness.

I'll ask again: where is the logical analysis of human free will that you claimed to have done? Was that just a porky?

[Alan Burns]

Multiple baseless implicit assertions with added intimidation, all bound up in a single sentence, my you really are a piece of work, Alan.  Check out my posting history and the answers are already there if your intention was really to enquire rather than intimidate. Clearly noone disputes that we have free will in the limited superficial compatibilist sense. I look at my potato plant and I am pleased that I have more degrees of freedom than it,  I can uproot and go to Luton tomorrow, my potato plant however remains stuck there.  My labrador enjoys a game of retrieving a thrown stick, but it is incapable of enjoying a string quartet or of starting an insurrection.  My apparent freedoms are far greater in range.  So much, so superficial.  None of my freedoms however extend to doing things that are conceptually illogical or impossible, we all live our lives within a framework of natural law that bounds what is conceptually valid. So I accept these hard facts of life, that I don't believe things that I don't believe, I cannot think a thought before I thought it, I do not want that which I do not want, I cannot make meaningful choices on a basis that is free of any meaningful basis, I cannot do something before I do it, I cannot travel backwards in time.  All these bizarre implications flow directly and consequentially from your claims and I reject them for the nonsense that they are and such is the honest thing to do despite any mythic threats from your mythic god to indulge unreason over reason.

All I have said in the past is that we have the freedom to consciously choose a feasible option from the many possible options available, rather than just reacting according to programmed instinct and learnt experience as demonstrated by your labrador.  I have never claimed the boundless freedom you reject in this post.  My post was not meant to intimidate - just to simply make you aware of the amazing freedom God has given us and not to limit your concept of freedom to what human science can discover.

[Alan Burns]

How you feel if it was proved beyond all doubt your god doesn't exist?

Sorry, Floo
It is not possible because I could not exist if God did not exist.

[Stranger]

It is not possible because I could not exist if God did not exist.

Begging the question gets its first outing of the day.   

[Shaker]

... and very likely not the last.

[torridon]

All I have said in the past is that we have the freedom to consciously choose a feasible option from the many possible options available, rather than just reacting according to programmed instinct and learnt experience as demonstrated by your labrador.  I have never claimed the boundless freedom you reject in this post.  My post was not meant to intimidate - just to simply make you aware of the amazing freedom God has given us and not to limit your concept of freedom to what human science can discover.

You are constantly claiming the irrational freedoms that I reject.  Every time you post up 'I can drive my thoughts' you are making just such an irrational inconceptual claim.  We cannot choose thoughts any more than we can choose beliefs or choose desires or fears.

[Nearly Sane]

You are constantly claiming the irrational freedoms that I reject.  Every time you post up 'I can drive my thoughts' you are making just such an irrational inconceptual claim.  We cannot choose thoughts any more than we can choose beliefs or choose desires or fears.

And even if we could we would have to have thoughts about what thoughts we wanted to have and thoughts about those thoughts etc etc etc

[ekim]

You are constantly claiming the irrational freedoms that I reject.  Every time you post up 'I can drive my thoughts' you are making just such an irrational inconceptual claim.  We cannot choose thoughts any more than we can choose beliefs or choose desires or fears.

I may be wrong, but I think Alan means 'choice between' beliefs, desires, fears e.g. between revenge and forgiveness, between (in the case of Jesus) self preservation (fear of death) and God's Will, between the thought of sinning and refraining from sin.  It is a struggle which makes Alan think he is in the driving seat.

[Nearly Sane]

I may be wrong, but I think Alan means 'choice between' beliefs, desires, fears e.g. between revenge and forgiveness, between (in the case of Jesus) self preservation (fear of death) and God's Will, between the thought of sinning and refraining from sin.  It is a struggle which makes Alan think he is in the driving seat.

Surely to have them though i.e. to be considering them, Alan is suggesting that you actually choose what you are considering. Even if he doesn't how does that help his position?

[Alan Burns]

And even if we could we would have to have thoughts about what thoughts we wanted to have and thoughts about those thoughts etc etc etc

Until you can define the nature of what a thought is, you can't make such assumptions about our ability to choose a thought.  You get into this infinite regress by trying to make a conscious thought fit the same type of determinism we get in machines, but our conscious awareness can't be replicated by any machine type determinism.

[floo]

Sorry, Floo
It is not possible because I could not exist if God did not exist.

Alan that is one of your dafter comments, because you have no verifiable evidence to support that statement.

[ekim]

Surely to have them though i.e. to be considering them, Alan is suggesting that you actually choose what you are considering. Even if he doesn't how does that help his position?

If that is what he is suggesting and he sticks to that then it won't help him, but it might allow him to review his position and change it to 'consider what you are choosing', (to reverse your words).

[Stranger]

Until you can define the nature of what a thought is, you can't make such assumptions about our ability to choose a thought.

Firstly, wow! You really are shameless in your gross double standards. The central concept of your whole appraoch is 'free will' which you have been completely unable to define.

Secondly, the definition of free will logically matters to your 'argument' in order to explain why it can't be physical and how it can exist in some non-physical way. However, the exact nature of a thought is unimportant to the idea that we can't choose our thoughts. The very act of making a conscious choice requires us to think about it, which leads to the infinite regress.

Choose not to think about a red circle and let us know how well you did.

You get into this infinite regress by trying to make a conscious thought fit the same type of determinism we get in machines, but our conscious awareness can't be replicated by any machine type determinism.

There is only one type of determinism.

And it is totally irrelevant to this point.

[Nearly Sane]

Until you can define the nature of what a thought is, you can't make such assumptions about our ability to choose a thought.  You get into this infinite regress by trying to make a conscious thought fit the same type of determinism we get in machines, but our conscious awareness can't be replicated by any machine type determinism.

What have machines got to do with it? This isn't even  about neuroscience - this is just a result of the terms YOU are using them, and how YOU use them. It's the logical problems of YOUR description

[Nearly Sane]

If that is what he is suggesting and he sticks to that then it won't help him, but it might allow him to review his position and change it to 'consider what you are choosing', (to reverse your words).

Yes, I can see that - if we just say there are x thoughts and we are in some odd loop between conscious/subconscious (something that it would appear to be from neuroscience), then there would be at least an experience of conscious 'considering'. Indeed that seems in line with what we experience and what seems to be indicated from neuroscience - but that doesn't give you anything free as you note, just 2 different types of processing with only a shadowy understanding of the interaction.

[ekim]

Yes, I can see that - if we just say there are x thoughts and we are in some odd loop between conscious/subconscious (something that it would appear to be from neuroscience), then there would be at least an experience of conscious 'considering'. Indeed that seems in line with what we experience and what seems to be indicated from neuroscience - but that doesn't give you anything free as you note, just 2 different types of processing with only a shadowy understanding of the interaction.

I think that the idea behind a number of religions is that you have to persist with a method to free your consciousness from the drives, thoughts, emotions etc. present in the psyche (soul, for Christians).  Some see it as a process of purifying the 'soul/psyche' e.g. only the pure of heart will attain the heavenly state.  Some see it as attaining a conscious still centre of balance amidst the psyche's inner turmoil.  The end result is a consciousness free from physical and mental attachments which would include religious dogma and scientific models, concepts etc.