Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

Maybe that is because an act of will that is not for any reason is random.

This is simply a matter of definition and simple, obvious, logic.  It is not a matter of opinion.  Time to engage brain, Alan.

The reason is simple - you do something because your conscious awareness wants you to.  The power to choose comes from you - a conscious choice is not an inevitable reaction dictated from previous events.

[Alan Burns]

Me not acknowledging your unsupported assertion is not a flaw in reasoning. I do acknowledge conscious willpower but you have provided no argument to support the view that it cannot be entirely predetermined. Perhaps more importantly, you have provided no alternative to predetermination.

Whenever I point that out, your response has just been to reassert that you can consciously choose what you want to do - which is not what I'm disputing.

Do you get the difference now? I know you can do what you consciously decide to do - I do not dispute it. But that says nothing about whether what you consciously decide to do is predetermined or not.

I have never suggested that it might be.

Yet more evidence that you aren't reading and understanding. YET AGAIN: adding 'physical' makes no difference to the meaning of 'determinism', neither is it relevant to previous events.

Either what you want to do is deterministically derived from previous events or not - being spiritually deterministically derived from previous spiritual events would be just as predetermined as the physical case.

Again, if you think that's wrong - argue against it - don't just mindlessly repeat the same phrases.

Which is just a string of words that define nothing at all. You've basically told us that conscious awareness works by being conscious and aware - with the meaningless 'spiritual' thrown in for good measure.

This is what you need to think about:

If ALL the reasons why you made a choice (all your nature and nurture; all of the person you are, applied to the situation at hand, at one exact point in time) could only have led to one choice, then the choice was deterministic (predetermined by the past). If not; if ALL the reasons could have resulted in a range of choices, then there cannot have been any reason at all for your choice of just one of them - and something that happens for no reason is random.

So, you have determinism (possibly) combined with randomness. What is your alternative?

You do not seem to grasp the fact that the conscious soul is not governed by the same inevitable cause and effect laws apparent in physical determinism, which is why I keep making the distinction. 

[Sebastian Toe]

You do not seem to grasp the fact that the conscious soul is not governed by the same inevitable cause and effect laws apparent in physical determinism, which is why I keep making the distinction.

What laws do govern it then?

[SusanDoris]

And still no reply from AB to Gordon's question as to whether AB thinks he can be wrong.

[Shaker]

And still no reply from AB to Gordon's question as to whether AB thinks he can be wrong.

It's not as though we don't already know the answer anyway.

[torridon]

The reason is simple - you do something because your conscious awareness wants you to.  The power to choose comes from you - a conscious choice is not an inevitable reaction dictated from previous events.

and if my consciousness wants to, for no reason, then it is random.  These are simply what the words mean, you cannot engineer distinct meanings to concepts that are private to you.  If there is no reason for it, that defines it as random, I'm afraid, end of story.

[Maeght]

You do not seem to grasp the fact that the conscious soul is not governed by the same inevitable cause and effect laws apparent in physical determinism, which is why I keep making the distinction.

Its not a fact.

[torridon]

You are one person, your soul.   The physical body is just a very complex biological machine driven by you, with no mind of its own.  Perception, conscious awareness and wilful interaction are things which can't be defined in physical terms.

This has got to be the bizarrest claim from you yet, and that is going some. Are you really claiming that humans, uniquely, would be insentient mindless zombies were it not for getting a soul ?  A silly person is silly because he has a silly soul ? A person with learning difficulties is so afflicted because god gave him/her a soul that was afflicted by cognitive impairment ?  Exactly where on our evolutionary pathway did homo sapiens start losing their minds and getting souls instead ?  Or was it a sudden catastrophic loss ?

[Stranger]

You do not seem to grasp the fact that the conscious soul is not governed by the same inevitable cause and effect laws apparent in physical determinism, which is why I keep making the distinction.

So, once again, you've just ignored all the points I made and just gone back to one of the empty, baseless, thought and logic free assertions from your script.

And you haven't made a distinction. You haven't given us any alternative to determinism, neither have you ever said what difference you think putting 'physical' in front of it actually makes.

I simply don't believe you made any effort at all to understand my post.

[Gordon]

You do not seem to grasp the fact that the conscious soul is not governed by the same inevitable cause and effect laws apparent in physical determinism, which is why I keep making the distinction.

This 'conscious soul' looks like a new variant in your theobabble, not that it makes any difference to the general incoherence of what you say. By the way your 'distinction' seems like code for your personal belief and is an unsupported claim and not knowledge - so, any progress in explaining how this 'conscious soul' actually operates?

The only option, if you discard determinism, is randomness which would be silly since even thinking randomly seems impossible - try it and let us know how you get on. I just did and failed, finding myself being unable to think of a random thought that, on reflection, I could be certain didn't in some way involve prior memory, knowledge, thought or experience. I thought to myself 'try to think of a random animal, Gordon' and found myself then thinking 'what kind of animal might that be' which led me to think of what kind of animals I have some knowledge or awareness of - by which time I realised I'd already failed to think randomly. 

[Stranger]

Maybe that is because an act of will that is not for any reason is random.

This is simply a matter of definition and simple, obvious, logic.  It is not a matter of opinion.  Time to engage brain, Alan.

The reason is simple - you do something because your conscious awareness wants you to.  The power to choose comes from you...

Everybody knows that, Alan. The reason in question is the reason why your conscious awareness wants you to do something. Any idiot can state that they did something because they wanted to, but it's not really very informative, is it?

...a conscious choice is not an inevitable reaction dictated from previous events.

He asserted, yet again, without basis and without even providing an alternative.

[Alan Burns]

and if my consciousness wants to, for no reason, then it is random.

The reason is simple - your conscious wants to - that is the reason.  It is not random

[torridon]

The reason is simple - your conscious wants to - that is the reason.  It is not random

That's not explaining anything.  "wanting" something does not magically explain itself.  A want that is born of no reason is random.  These are what the words mean.  Any event that is not a consequence of prior events is random.  These are what the words mean. We're having to teach you elementary concepts of English vocabulary it seems.

[Sebastian Toe]

The reason is simple - your conscious wants to - that is the reason.  It is not random

But what is the process that drives that want?
If there is no definition available for that process then all you are doing is speculating, wildly (Now where have I seen that before?)

[Alan Burns]

This has got to be the bizarrest claim from you yet, and that is going some. Are you really claiming that humans, uniquely, would be insentient mindless zombies were it not for getting a soul ?

Just robotic survival machines with no free will of their own.

A silly person is silly because he has a silly soul ? A person with learning difficulties is so afflicted because god gave him/her a soul that was afflicted by cognitive impairment ?  Exactly where on our evolutionary pathway did homo sapiens start losing their minds and getting souls instead ?  Or was it a sudden catastrophic loss ?

Mental abilities such as intelligence are part of the physical make up of the brain - part of the machine.  A driver of a Ferrari has much more physical scope than a driver of a Reliant Robin. 

[floo]

Just robotic survival machines with no free will of their own.Mental abilities such as intelligence are part of the physical make up of the brain - part of the machine.  A driver of a Ferrari has much more physical scope than a driver of a Reliant Robin.

You say the same thing over and over again, but it is no more convincing now than it was when you first uttered it.

[torridon]

Just robotic survival machines with no free will of their own.Mental abilities such as intelligence are part of the physical make up of the brain - part of the machine.  A driver of a Ferrari has much more physical scope than a driver of a Reliant Robin.

So you agree, at long last, that machines can be intelligent then ? Presumably with other mental attributes ?

[Alan Burns]

This 'conscious soul' looks like a new variant in your theobabble, not that it makes any difference to the general incoherence of what you say. By the way your 'distinction' seems like code for your personal belief and is an unsupported claim and not knowledge - so, any progress in explaining how this 'conscious soul' actually operates?

The only option, if you discard determinism, is randomness which would be silly since even thinking randomly seems impossible - try it and let us know how you get on. I just did and failed, finding myself being unable to think of a random thought that, on reflection, I could be certain didn't in some way involve prior memory, knowledge, thought or experience. I thought to myself 'try to think of a random animal, Gordon' and found myself then thinking 'what kind of animal might that be' which led me to think of what kind of animals I have some knowledge or awareness of - by which time I realised I'd already failed to think randomly.

But what initiated this "trying" to think randomly?  Was it was initiated simply because you wanted to do it?  Or do you really think it was an inevitable, uncontrollable reaction?

[torridon]

But what initiated this "trying" to think randomly?  Was it was initiated simply because you wanted to do it?  Or do you really think it was an inevitable, uncontrollable reaction?

My money says he wanted to do it for a reason.

[ekim]

This 'conscious soul' looks like a new variant in your theobabble, not that it makes any difference to the general incoherence of what you say. By the way your 'distinction' seems like code for your personal belief and is an unsupported claim and not knowledge - so, any progress in explaining how this 'conscious soul' actually operates?

The only option, if you discard determinism, is randomness which would be silly since even thinking randomly seems impossible - try it and let us know how you get on. I just did and failed, finding myself being unable to think of a random thought that, on reflection, I could be certain didn't in some way involve prior memory, knowledge, thought or experience. I thought to myself 'try to think of a random animal, Gordon' and found myself then thinking 'what kind of animal might that be' which led me to think of what kind of animals I have some knowledge or awareness of - by which time I realised I'd already failed to think randomly.

It's a bit different in theoland though. Here, random is a term which doesn't exist because all is determined by theo.  Man uses the word 'random' to stand in for those occasions when he is unconscious of the determining factors.  The Jesus way is to surrender 'self' determinism, which you employed in your thought experiment, to God determinism (Thy will be done).  The way to this is said to be through inner stillness rather than inner agitation.

[Stranger]

The reason is simple - your conscious wants to - that is the reason.

Don't be silly.

If I asked you why you chose one course of action, would you just dumbly say "because my conscious will wanted to" or would you be able to give reasons?

It is not random

I'm going to repeat this because you keep ignoring it:-

If ALL the reasons why you made a choice (all your nature and nurture; all of the person you are, applied to the situation at hand, at one exact point in time) could only have led to one choice, then the choice was deterministic (predetermined by the past). If not; if ALL the reasons could have resulted in a range of choices, then there cannot have been any reason at all for your choice of just one of them - and something that happens for no reason is random.

[Enki]

The reason is simple - your conscious wants to - that is the reason.  It is not random

Why does this consciousness want one thing but not another, Alan? Simply suggesting that your consciousness wanting something does not answer that question. It seems to me that this is the crux of the matter. If you think that this consciousness/conscious awareness does not randomly want something then you must have some sort of explanation of how it arrives at this process of 'wanting'. What is it?

[Maeght]

The reason is simple - your conscious wants to - that is the reason.  It is not random

Yes, we all .understand that that is what you are saying but you don't seem to understand what you are being asked.

On what basis does you conscious will decide what it wants?

[Alan Burns]

So you agree, at long last, that machines can be intelligent then ? Presumably with other mental attributes ?

Intelligence and conscious awareness are two different things.  A computer can be said to possess intelligence, but it has no awareness or will of its own.

[Alan Burns]

Yes, we all .understand that that is what you are saying but you don't seem to understand what you are being asked.

On what basis does you conscious will decide what it wants?

I say and write what I want to - it is as simple as that.  Trying to fit this ability into a physically deterministic world is where the complications come in, because freedom to choose and physical determinism are not compatible.