Searching for GOD...

[Shaker]

Dogs and pigs are animals. Do they have sex with each other?
Thought not...seems you don't really think before you post!
 

And certainly not during.

[floo]

You mean like a dog or pig? You want to marry an animal and have sex with them?
Thought not... seems you don't believe your really an animal at all.
 

What a stupid comment, even for you.  Each species of animal has sex with its own kind.

[floo]

I did choose to believe because I have a love of Truth and truth is more important than having no clue, as you do.
Had you read the book and actually wanted to know the truth, you would have made your choice on fact not your own chosen beliefs. Your heart is hard and you made it that way. Always blaming someone else, never taking the blame.

Sass and truth? Thanks for the giggle.

[ippy]

Let me see... How daft was Jesus Christ in that his belief in Gods word and his claim to come from God made him capable of all the miracles he performed. Faith dead without actions?

You surely cannot think you actually had an argument there in the greater scheme of things relating to both God and Jesus Christ in the bible?

I think your mind is closed.

Let me see, this post of yours Sass, amounts to the same thing as saying or writing that the bible proves the bible, you've done it again Sass, you don't appear to even know what you have just done.

Like I said Sass, to say the bible proves the bible is a really daft thing to say, it's a senseless thing to do.

Regards ippy

[floo]

Let me see, this post of yours Sass, amounts to the same thing as saying or writing that the bible proves the bible, you've done it again Sass, you don't appear to even know what you have just done.

Like I said Sass, to say the bible proves the bible is a really daft thing to say, it's a senseless thing to do.

Regards ippy

But exactly the sort of drivel you expect from Sass!

[ippy]

I was out today walking the dog, thinking to myself I must remember to pick up the batteries for my hearing aids and then my thoughts drifted on to some conversations I've had about these aids one doctor friend of mine a GP, he knows I'm an Hi Fi fanatic and he was asking how has my loss of hearing affected my enjoyment of my music, I then related to him about how the brain independently of myself adjusts its self to the frequencies I no longer hear, without any concious effort on my part brains pass on an approximation of whatever it thinks, presumably from its past experience, things should sound like.

Crudely, the hearing aids pick up the now unreachable to me frequencies and alters them into frequencies I do hear, now the sounds the aids produce and shoves into my ear is a bit on the tinny side and the tinny quality they transmit doesn't alter.

My ears pick up the unaltering tinny sound then when I first switch them on I hear tinny for a moment and as though it's magic my brain steps in and makes the altered, amplified frequencies, sound just as they did to me before my hearing took a dive, so I'm still able to enjoy my beloved Beethoven's works more or less as they were.

I've now had a sit down after all of that heavy, for me, thinking and it made me wonder how would this cause and effect be seen by good old A B?

I'll guess he thinks soul or an act of god's in there somewhere, whatever he thinks I'm sure it'll be as barmy as the rest of the stuff he's always going on about, it'll still be a bramah, I'll bet.

I did get to the point I was trying to make in the end.

Regards to all ippy

[wigginhall]

Interesting points, ippy.  This has been studied in relation to speech and language - you can cut out bits of speech (on tape), and people still hear the original.   Obviously the brain is filling in the missing bits.   But torridon has often made this point - that the brain is constructing everything in our experience, of course, there are sensory inputs normally.  But a dream shows experience without inputs.

Oh, Alan will give you some empty phrases about the soul.   

[Alan Burns]

I've now had a sit down after all of that heavy, for me, thinking and it made me wonder how would this cause and effect be seen by good old A B?

The cause and effect all ends up with the perceiver - you.  You perceive.  You are aware.  Remove the "you" and all that is left is a lot of vibrating molecules with nothing to perceive them.

[Shaker]

Interesting points, ippy.  This has been studied in relation to speech and language - you can cut out bits of speech (on tape), and people still hear the original.   Obviously the brain is filling in the missing bits.   But torridon has often made this point - that the brain is constructing everything in our experience, of course, there are sensory inputs normally.  But a dream shows experience without inputs.

Oh, Alan will give you some empty phrases about the soul.

Prediction: confirmed.

[torridon]

Your detailed explanation fits well with observed animal behaviour, but it falls far short of explaining how humans work.  You seem to be convinced that all our responses occur sub consciously before we become aware of them, yet your well thought out replies to my posts offer overwhelming evidence that you are able to consciously manipulate and control your response....

'Well thought out' is largely irrelevant to the interplay between intimate levels of mind consciousness.  Without highly sensitive detecting equipment there is no way you could measure that subtle interplay.  Clearly consciousness is involved in most situations in humans as in other animals; consciousness lag presumably is a function of brain size, so all creatures with a brain have some lag, but presumably it is much less for a sparrow than it is for a human.  This is my pet theory as to why the enormous sauropod dinosaurs had very small heads in relation to their massive body size.  If their brain size were somewhat proportionate to body size, they would be easy meat for the smaller predatory dinosaurs with less consciousness lag.

As to 'well thought out', that is mostly a matter of cognitive function, not consciousness.

[ippy]

The cause and effect all ends up with the perceiver - you.  You perceive.  You are aware.  Remove the "you" and all that is left is a lot of vibrating molecules with nothing to perceive them.

So if I see a picture on a wall the perceiver me, I perceive, I'm aware. Remove the me and all there is left is a a collection of various colours spread out on a canvas, along with a nail and a piece of string.

I have to say A B, I'm so impressed with the volumes of intellect that you possess and occasionaly display, perhaps you shouldn't try so hard to conceal this as much as you do.

Necessarily the kindest of regards ippy.

[Owlswing]

Sass and truth? Thanks for the giggle.

Yeah, but only Sass's version of the truth as per the Church!

[Stranger]

The cause and effect all ends up with the perceiver - you.  You perceive.  You are aware.  Remove the "you" and all that is left is a lot of vibrating molecules with nothing to perceive them.

Yet more confirmation that not only have you not done a logical analysis of the problem, you haven't even thought about it.

How does a "perceiver" work Alan? What is the nature of its internal processes?

[torridon]

How can you possibly be convinced that all your detailed replies get formulated in your sub conscious without any conscious interaction?  I consciously interact with this world - it is what I do at the most fundamental level of reality.  It is what we all do.  It is what God intended us to do.  Our ability to consciously interact is no accident, and it certainly cannot be defined solely by the material reactions in our brain.

'without any conscious interaction' is too simplistic. I keep saying that consciousness is involved in the process.  Brain function produces consciousness, under certain circumstances, but there are feedback loops involved.  Imagine you light a bonfire in the garden.  Does the bonfire produce heat, or does the heat produce the bonfire ?  At the simplest level, clearly the bonfire produces heat, but there are feedback loops involved - fire requires fuel, oxygen and heat, and heat from the bonfire feeds back into the fire creating a runaway effect.  Similarly with experience, fundamental levels of brain function fabricate conscious experience and that conscious experience feeds back into base brain function. For a simple example of that, consider nightmares. A dream is a form of conscious experience during sleep and yet after a terrible nightmare sometimes I remain feeling fearful even after I have woken up.  This is a case of conscious experience feeding back down into base emotional states.

[torridon]

The cause and effect all ends up with the perceiver - you.  You perceive.  You are aware.  Remove the "you" and all that is left is a lot of vibrating molecules with nothing to perceive them.

A fox has perception; a fox is aware of its environment; likewise with humans.  All creatures have varying qualities of perception and cognition.  It is not an either/or thing.  Did you have the same qualities of perception when you were a foetus, or an unborn baby, or when you were fast asleep last night ?  These things vary constantly.  Through study we can gain insight into how these things work.  Proposing a magic 'soul' as a seat of experience advances our understanding not a jot.  It is merely black box into which we can put things we find difficult to fathom.

[ekim]

For a simple example of that, consider nightmares. A dream is a form of conscious experience during sleep and yet after a terrible nightmare sometimes I remain feeling fearful even after I have woken up.  This is a case of conscious experience feeding back down into base emotional states.

Or is it the emotional state taking the form of a nightmare scenario which you are conscious of in sleep, and when you awaken to external stimuli, the emotional state continues to express itself?

[torridon]

Or is it the emotional state taking the form of a nightmare scenario which you are conscious of in sleep, and when you awaken to external stimuli, the emotional state continues to express itself?

Yes it can be fiendlishly difficult, if not impossible, to unpick the convoluted sometimes recursive chains of cause and effect

[Alan Burns]

Humans are an animal species.

And we are all God's creation.
One remarkable difference between humans and animals is our ability to be aware of God, but sadly many humans seem to be in denial that they have this very special gift.

[Shaker]

And we are all God's creation.

One remarkable difference between humans and animals is our ability to be aware of God, but sadly many humans seem to be in denial that they have this very special gift.

Floo's statement was one of fact. Yours is an assertion of personal belief founded upon clownish credulity.

[Alan Burns]

Did you have the same qualities of perception when you were a foetus, or an unborn baby, or when you were fast asleep last night ?

Our physical bodies provide the window into this material world.  If the physical working of the brain does not take place for whatever reason, the perception of what is in the brain will be absent.  Our physical brains process the information which our soul can perceive.

[Shaker]

Our physical bodies provide the window into this material world. 

... also known as 'the world', the word 'material' being redundant.

[Sebastian Toe]

Our physical bodies provide the window into this material world. 

Where is the other side of the window if it is not in this (material)  world?

[floo]

And we are all God's creation.
One remarkable difference between humans and animals is our ability to be aware of God, but sadly many humans seem to be in denial that they have this very special gift.

We are ALL animal species. If other species of animals don't have the imagination to create gods, lucky them!

[Maeght]

Quite right, all to do with the creative human mind.

[torridon]

And we are all God's creation.
One remarkable difference between humans and animals is our ability to be aware of God, but sadly many humans seem to be in denial that they have this very special gift.

There's no reason to suppose that particular human characteristic is a 'gift', rather than a consequence of our natural evolutionary development.

One remarkable difference between sharks and humans is their capacity for electroreception; should we therefore conclude that this is a very special 'gift' that sharks alone have been given ?