Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

Nature is in control.
Nature decrees that you cannot hold your breath for 20 minutes no matter how much will you have, free or otherwise.
Is Nature wrong here?

The point I was making is that I have the power to control some aspects my own body.  I admit that I do not have total control, and I do not control nature.  If I was to deliberately hold my breath underwater, I would be doing it under my own control.  I know it is not physically possible to hold it for 20 minutes, but if I deliberately held my breath for one minute it would be because I had the free will and control to do it.  The alternative materialist scenario has nature in full control of everything.

[Alan Burns]

Probably one of the most frightening and horrifying of human sentiments, which has led to the trashing of the planet, extinctions of animals and plants on a huge scale, global warming, pollution in the air and the oceans, and so on.    We are in control - what a joke, and what mass hubris.

I agree.  In many ways we do misuse our powers of control

[Sebastian Toe]

The alternative materialist scenario has nature in full control of everything.

You are part of nature, you are natural.
Whatever you do is natural, including making decisions and manipulating what bits of nature is naturally possible.
Your brain, your 'will', your consciousness are all part of nature.
There is absolutely no need to introduce a supernatural element such as a soul.

[SusanDoris]

You are part of nature, you are natural.
Whatever you do is natural, including making decisions and manipulating what bits of nature is naturally possible.
Your brain, your 'will', your consciousness are all part of nature.
There is absolutely no need to introduce a supernatural element such as a soul.

And AB's arrogance and conceit which his posts appear to convey mean that he will not even begin to understand what you have written here.

[Alan Burns]

And AB's arrogance and conceit which his posts appear to convey mean that he will not even begin to understand what you have written here.

Of course I understand what was written, but I have to say that I can't agree with it because it contradicts my perception of reality.  A reality in which I have the power to implement acts of my own consciously driven will which can't be explained in terms of materialistic pre defined determinism.

[Maeght]

Of course I understand what was written, but I have to say that I can't agree with it because it contradicts my perception of reality.  A reality in which I have the power to implement acts of my own consciously driven will which can't be explained in terms of materialistic pre defined determinism.

You can't agree because it contradicts your religious beliefs. Tge bible mentions free will so that's it as far as you are concerned.

[torridon]

And if I did try to do this, it would be through the power of my free will.  If nature was in control, the concept of deliberately staying under water would not be possible because I would have no will of my own.  As I said, nature does not control me - I am in control.

This sort of thinking implies that we are not part of nature, as if we were somewhat separate, antagonists in life, us and it.  It is a way of thinking that has ancient roots, you can see it in early Hebrew scriptures for instance,  Man taming nature, neolithic peoples clearing the forests to make way for agriculture and villages.  True, we have altered the natural landscapes to suit our convenience, although now we are coming to understand that we are part of the system and tinkering with Nature has consequences for us.  I think we need to drop this ancient us/it divide that separates us from the rest of the natural world, and this means dropping your notions of control, "I am not nature's puppet", "I control nature" etc; these are unhelpful and unwise ways of thinking.  We are not supernatural agents parachuted into a base natural world, we are part of that world, evolved from an Ape lineage, entirely natural products of it, and our thinkings and doings and choices are all expressions of Nature.

[torridon]

Of course I understand what was written, but I have to say that I can't agree with it because it contradicts my perception of reality.  A reality in which I have the power to implement acts of my own consciously driven will which can't be explained in terms of materialistic pre defined determinism.

Noone believes you Alan, or your mantra.  Despite innumerable opportunities to do so, you've failed to demonstrate any process by which 'spirits' can arrive at choices that are free of any determining basis whilst also not being random.  Back in the real world, we have a very good explanation of choice, people make choices for a reason, and the formative reasons leading up to the moment of choice are in the past.  The arrow of time says we cannot change existing considerations in the present moment. We are not magic beings, the choices we make are expressions of the profound logic of cause and effect.

[Alan Burns]

Noone believes you Alan, or your mantra.  Despite innumerable opportunities to do so, you've failed to demonstrate any process by which 'spirits' can arrive at choices that are free of any determining basis whilst also not being random.  Back in the real world, we have a very good explanation of choice, people make choices for a reason, and the formative reasons leading up to the moment of choice are in the past.  The arrow of time says we cannot change existing considerations in the present moment. We are not magic beings, the choices we make are expressions of the profound logic of cause and effect.

And as I said previously, reasons are formulated in our conscious awareness and they are subjective - controlled by our consciously driven will.  In your materialistic world can we only assume that reasons are entirely pre determined by physical events over which we can have no control.  Every post on this thread is evidence that we are all free thinking individuals.  We can't change the past, but we do have the power to change our minds.

[Walter]

And as I said previously, reasons are formulated in our conscious awareness and they are subjective - controlled by our consciously driven will.  In your materialistic world can we only assume that reasons are entirely pre determined by physical events over which we can have no control.  Every post on this thread is evidence that we are all free thinking individuals.  We can't change the past, but we do have the power to change our minds.

you aught to change yours for one that works properly

[Gordon]

We can't change the past, but we do have the power to change our minds.

Super - so please demonstrate this by changing your mind about God and becoming an atheist.

Doing so immediately (or possibly even sooner than that) would be a useful demonstration of this free will you keep banging on about.

[torridon]

And as I said previously, reasons are formulated in our conscious awareness and they are subjective - controlled by our consciously driven will.  In your materialistic world can we only assume that reasons are entirely pre determined by physical events over which we can have no control.  Every post on this thread is evidence that we are all free thinking individuals.  We can't change the past, but we do have the power to change our minds.

We cannot change our minds by will.  If you are appalled because you have just had some terrible news, can you just choose to find it hilarious ?  If you believe that Paris is in France, can you will yourself into believing it to be in Pakistan ?  If you dislike the taste of Marmite can you just decide that it tastes like chocolate ? Our state of mind in the current moment is not something we choose; if that were possible, then people would just choose to be happy all the time and all our problems would be solved.  Or not, more likely.

[Alan Burns]

We cannot change our minds by will.  If you are appalled because you have just had some terrible news, can you just choose to find it hilarious ?  If you believe that Paris is in France, can you will yourself into believing it to be in Pakistan ?  If you dislike the taste of Marmite can you just decide that it tastes like chocolate ? Our state of mind in the current moment is not something we choose; if that were possible, then people would just choose to be happy all the time and all our problems would be solved.  Or not, more likely.

I agree that we can't change our emotions or personal likes and dislikes.
But there are lots of things we can consciously change - if you can't think of any, you must be a mindless machine.

[BeRational]

I agree that we can't change our emotions or personal likes and dislikes.
But there are lots of things we can consciously change - if you can't think of any, you must be a mindless machine.

You cannot change your beliefs as they are not chosen. They emerge, and can only change but new evidence or a different view of existing evidence.

You do not simply believe. Your mind whatever that is forms opinions however it does that, but choice seems to play no part.

[Alan Burns]

You cannot change your beliefs as they are not chosen. They emerge, and can only change but new evidence or a different view of existing evidence.

You do not simply believe. Your mind whatever that is forms opinions however it does that, but choice seems to play no part.

But we can and do choose to cherry pick the arguments which suite what we want to believe.
However there is only one objective truth.
CS Lewis was a prime example of one who initially chose arguments to support his atheist belief, until he had the courage and conviction to admit that he had been wrong.

[Sebastian Toe]

But we can and do choose to cherry pick the arguments which suite what we want to believe.
However there is only one objective truth.
CS Lewis was a prime example of one who initially chose arguments to support his atheist belief, until he had the courage and conviction to admit that he had been wrong.

I suppose that David Bebjamin Kildani the Catholic priest who had the courage and conviction to admit that he had been wrong, so converted to Islam who wrote;

"I must remind the Christians that unless they believe in the absolute unity of God, and renounce the belief in the three persons, they are certainly unbelievers in the true God ... The Old Testament and the Qur'an condemn the doctrine of three persons in God; the New Testament does not expressly hold or defend it, but even if it contains hints and traces concerning the Trinity, it is no authority at all, because it was neither seen nor written by Christ himself, nor in the language he spoke, nor did it exist in its present form and contents for - at least - the first two centuries after him."

...would be a prime example?

[BeRational]

But we can and do choose to cherry pick the arguments which suite what we want to believe.
However there is only one objective truth.
CS Lewis was a prime example of one who initially chose arguments to support his atheist belief, until he had the courage and conviction to admit that he had been wrong.

You can certainly change your beliefs, we all do. You do not choose your beliefs is the point I am making.
Do you agree that beliefs are not chosen?

[Sebastian Toe]

However there is only one objective truth.

Well then if that is the case, everyone will agree with it.

What is it?

[floo]

But we can and do choose to cherry pick the arguments which suite what we want to believe.
However there is only one objective truth.
CS Lewis was a prime example of one who initially chose arguments to support his atheist belief, until he had the courage and conviction to admit that he had been wrong.

Which no doubt you reckon is your perception of it!

[torridon]

I agree that we can't change our emotions or personal likes and dislikes.
But there are lots of things we can consciously change - if you can't think of any, you must be a mindless machine.

If I change my mind, there is always a reason for that though, otherwise it would be random.

We cannot change our mind by an act of will; rather what happens is that something changes that in turn triggers a change of mind.  Maybe an insight, maybe something external, maybe we remember a relevant point that we had forgotten, there must be something triggering that change of mind; things don't happen for no reason.

[torridon]

However there is only one objective truth.

That doesn't make much sense.  In a relative world, true objectivity is a myth.  Perhaps more accurate would be to observe that a particular claim can be true or false; but more profoundly, things are either logical or they aren't and my contention that reality is deterministic is consistent with logic. Illogical existence is an oxymoron.

[torridon]

Of course I understand what was written, but I have to say that I can't agree with it because it contradicts my perception of reality.  A reality in which I have the power to implement acts of my own consciously driven will which can't be explained in terms of materialistic pre defined determinism.

Sane has posted up a link to a paper from UCL on another thread that speaks exactly to the topic of the myth of conscious executive control :

To quote the introduction :

Despite the compelling subjective experience of executive self-control, we argue that “consciousness” contains no top-down control processes and that “consciousness” involves no executive, causal, or controlling relationship with any of the familiar psychological processes conventionally attributed to it. In our view, psychological processing and psychological products are not under the control of consciousness.


https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01924/full

[Alan Burns]

Sane has posted up a link to a paper from UCL on another thread that speaks exactly to the topic of the myth of conscious executive control :

To quote the introduction :

Despite the compelling subjective experience of executive self-control, we argue that “consciousness” contains no top-down control processes and that “consciousness” involves no executive, causal, or controlling relationship with any of the familiar psychological processes conventionally attributed to it. In our view, psychological processing and psychological products are not under the control of consciousness.


https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01924/full

Which is the inevitable conclusion if you rely entirely upon what can be discovered by our physical senses and man made instruments, whose investigations will be limited to perceiving how physical entities react to events.  So it will be no surprise that any conclusions from such investigations will be based entirely upon the deterministic behaviour of physical materials.

But as I said - is contradicts my most fundamental perception of reality, and no amount of human attempts at physical explanations can take away the reality of my power to consciously choose through the power of my God given soul.

[Sebastian Toe]

Which is the inevitable conclusion if you rely entirely upon what can be discovered by our physical senses and man made instruments, whose investigations will be limited to perceiving how physical entities react to events.  So it will be no surprise that any conclusions from such investigations will be based entirely upon the deterministic behaviour of physical materials.

Are you saying that the researchers do not have souls?

[Alan Burns]

Are you saying that the researchers do not have souls?

Of course they have souls, otherwise they would not have the freedom to do research.

All I am pointing out is that their investigation methods will never detect the presence of a non material soul.