Searching for GOD...

[ippy]

The implication is that our freedom can't be derived purely from the deterministically driven events in the physical material of our brain.  Our freedom must come from a source which is not constrained by the uncontrollable forces of nature, so our freedom is verifiable evidence of our spiritual, God given nature.

N S has summed you up nicely in his post 25596, you've been done up in a very expensive shiny golden paper with a beautiful large ornate bow atop and served up on a golden platter, I suppose it'll be more of the usual complete absence of anything credible being offered to back up your words.

Doesn't the fact that you have no facility to hand that you could use, if you had it, that would back up the many assertions you keep on making, (they will always remain assertions until you find a way of verifying them), you seem totally unable to get this.

Necessarily the very kindest of regards to you Alan, ippy

[torridon]

It is not that I do not like the conclusion.  I am making the statement that the conclusion is obviously wrong, because I have verifiable consciously driven control of what I do, think and say.

whereas research in cognitive science verifies that your conclusion is wrong. If consciousness is an end product of the chain of processing, how on earth could it be the 'driver' ?  The real drivers of volition and choice lie below the level of our awareness.

[SusanDoris]

N S has summed you up nicely in his post 25596, you've been done up in a very expensive shiny golden paper with a beautiful large ornate bow atop and served up on a golden platter, I suppose it'll be more of the usual complete absence of anything credible being offered to back up your words.

Seconded.

[Sriram]

I didn't intend any teleology by "things happen for a reason".  Just a principle of logic that there are always consequences, nothing and nobody is an island, everything is connected, the arrow of time goes forward only.  This is at the heart of the illusion of free will; the idea that the present moment can be free of the consequences of the past is profoundly irrational.  The present moment is an inevitable outcome of the past and that is true for mind states, like wanting a tea more than a coffee on a Tuesday afternoon in Luton.

That is true only in a closed system. If the system is open to outside interventions and influences...the results are not just a linear extrapolation of past conditions....the situation becomes much more complex and intriguing. That is what we find in all the complexity and Emergent Properties that arise for no clear reason at all.

I am not discussing free will rather that determination is due to many things besides mere physical laws.  The Unconscious Mind is evidently one source as we are beginning to understand....  This could be the start of many more mysteries unfolding.   

[ekim]

Not sure what you are trying to achieve with this post. You seem tone telling Maeght not to engage with what Alan says he believes because it's not consistent with your view of what Alan should be saying he believes. Surely it would be much better for you to address that directly to Alan rather using Maeght as a go between? Seems to me to be hugely patronising to Alan to indirectly use a reply to Maeght to point this out.

I am not trying to achieve anything other than suggesting an answer to Maeght's question based upon how I read the words attributed to Jesus (as this is a Christian topic).  As regards Alan, I think he has enough to do fending off the pack of hounds snapping at him on this site each day without him feeling patronised about anything I say.  For all I know he might agree with me and if not he is quite capable of commenting on what I have said.  If I had thought that I would upset anybody's sensitivities then I could just as easily have used the word 'Christian' in place of 'Alan' but Maeght's post involved Alan.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

whereas research in cognitive science verifies that your conclusion is wrong. If consciousness is an end product of the chain of processing, how on earth could it be the 'driver' ?  The real drivers of volition and choice lie below the level of our awareness.

I have the feeling you are gussying up findings in cognitive science to a complete process which hasn't been established.
Is it, for example, established that we are dealing with a chain and not a cycle in which Consciousness is a level of processing which then informs these drivers?

I find it ironic that the reductionism that has been going on in this thread has led us to the quasi mystical statement ''The real drivers of volition and choice lie below the level of our awareness''

[wigginhall]

I didn't intend any teleology by "things happen for a reason".  Just a principle of logic that there are always consequences, nothing and nobody is an island, everything is connected, the arrow of time goes forward only.  This is at the heart of the illusion of free will; the idea that the present moment can be free of the consequences of the past is profoundly irrational.  The present moment is an inevitable outcome of the past and that is true for mind states, like wanting a tea more than a coffee on a Tuesday afternoon in Luton.

Nicely put.   It struck me that the causes of things have been quite opaque to human beings, and we tended to evoke spirits and demons as causes.    And when it comes to human motives, probably it's even more opaque - the idea of the unconscious/subconscious still evokes great resistance in some people.   

I was going to ramble on about 'the principle of sufficient reason', which has been around for a long while, but it gets too complicated.   However, the idea of something happening for no reason is certainly odd.  I'm not sure if free will is supposed to mean this or not - I must admit I don't understand what 'free' means here. 

[ippy]

Seconded.

Thank you S D, no doubt A B's gone out shopping or something amounting to no doubt some period of absence from this thread for a while  before we get another continuance of the only thing he seems to be capable of, assertion, without answering what he must see as  another one of those rather awkward questions, that he needs to avoid, I can only suppose he can't make himself answer for fear of breaking his delusion. 

Alan, it must have occurred to yo that there's no way you can validate, these beliefs of yours, surly you're not that thick?

All you need to say is you can't prove your words but you really sincerely believe them to be true, why do you find it so difficult to admit this fact? 

Necessarily the very kindest of wishes and kind regards to you Alan, ippy

[ippy]

Perhaps!! 

We have seen in the past that the world turns out to be only much more complex than we thought...never less.

Do have a look at Professor Jim Alkali's talk about the way the European Robin navigates it's migration, (the U K Robin doesn't migrate).

It's very interesting and a mind bender, I'm sure you'll find it on YouTube.

The Robin's about one of the most loved of our English native birds it'll sit on the hand of your gardening fork inches away from you when they get to know you, I've two in my garden the both look at me and think this silly old sod's harmless and grub about when I'm digging looking to see if I've dug up any fresh looking worms for them to eat and they do this at arms length sometimes jumpingf on to the bit of ground inches in front of me right before my face, they're such cheeky little devils, call one up on google, they're a very small bird. 

Like you say things get curiouser and curiouser the more you look into them.

Regards ippy

[Maeght]

I am not trying to achieve anything other than suggesting an answer to Maeght's question based upon how I read the words attributed to Jesus (as this is a Christian topic).  As regards Alan, I think he has enough to do fending off the pack of hounds snapping at him on this site each day without him feeling patronised about anything I say.  For all I know he might agree with me and if not he is quite capable of commenting on what I have said.  If I had thought that I would upset anybody's sensitivities then I could just as easily have used the word 'Christian' in place of 'Alan' but Maeght's post involved Alan.

No, if you look back, at post 25534 you said 'Perhaps he means .....' referring to Alan and this started the discussion about Alan. I would agree with NS that it would be better to leave Alan to explain what he means.

[Alan Burns]

whereas research in cognitive science verifies that your conclusion is wrong. If consciousness is an end product of the chain of processing, how on earth could it be the 'driver' ?  The real drivers of volition and choice lie below the level of our awareness.

And do you seriously think that a brain surgeon or heart surgeon are only aware of an incision AFTER they have made it? 

[torridon]

And do you seriously think that a brain surgeon or heart surgeon are only aware of an incision AFTER they have made it? 

Its not just surgeons, every living thing with a brain experiences life subject to a small time lag; brains need a certain amount of  time to construct a coherent and clear composited stream of awareness.  Conscious experience is a massively sophisticated phenomenon coordinating multiple different information streams.  I know we tend to take it all for granted, but then maybe we are being lazy in that.  Start from a baseline of fundamental physics - there is no such thing as instantaneous;  Einstein showed us that there is an finite limit to the speed of information transfer - light speed.  Speeds of neural transmission are far slower than that, with chemical messaging across synaptic gaps slowing the propagation of thoughts immensely and given that brains are processing literally billions of such events every second, even when sleeping, I find it staggering that our time lag is in fact so small as 400ms or thereabouts.  So, for your surgeon, he formed an intention to make an incision before he 'knew' he formed it, and he made the incision  before he 'knew' that he had made it. 

I agree, nonetheless, this is counterintuitive, but hey, that is why we do science, to expose the actualities that underpin our common perceptions of what reality is like.

[Alan Burns]

So, for your surgeon, he formed an intention to make an incision before he 'knew' he formed it, and he made the incision  before he 'knew' that he had made it. 

But in this you are presuming that the intention to make an incision is totally devoid of the surgeon's conscious perception.   Can you not see how ridiculous this presumption is?

[SweetPea]

I am not trying to achieve anything other than suggesting an answer to Maeght's question based upon how I read the words attributed to Jesus (as this is a Christian topic).  As regards Alan, I think he has enough to do fending off the pack of hounds snapping at him on this site each day without him feeling patronised about anything I say.  For all I know he might agree with me and if not he is quite capable of commenting on what I have said.  If I had thought that I would upset anybody's sensitivities then I could just as easily have used the word 'Christian' in place of 'Alan' but Maeght's post involved Alan.

Ekim, I looked back and didn't find your comment patronising towards Alan, at all. Your contributions and Sriram's have given balance to this thread and I've found your efforts in trying to explain what you think Alan is saying very useful.

The materialists here, not able to take on the spiritual, cannot get off the starting blocks with what Alan is trying to say.

[Nearly Sane]

Ekim, I looked back and didn't find your comment patronising towards Alan, at all. Your contributions and Sriram's have given balance to this thread and I've found your efforts in trying to explain what you think Alan is saying very useful.

The materialists here, not able to take on the spiritual, cannot get off the starting blocks with what Alan is trying to say.

  Logic - it hurts!!!

[Maeght]

Ekim, I looked back and didn't find your comment patronising towards Alan, at all. Your contributions and Sriram's have given balance to this thread and I've found your efforts in trying to explain what you think Alan is saying very useful.

The materialists here, not able to take on the spiritual, cannot get off the starting blocks with what Alan is trying to say.

Do you think your last sentence is patronising to materialist s at all Sweetpea?

[Sriram]

Do you think your last sentence is patronising to materialist s at all Sweetpea?

You guys are not just patronizing but downright insulting to all spiritual and religious people. That is not likely to change is it?! 

[SusanDoris]

I am not trying to achieve anything other than suggesting an answer to Maeght's question based upon how I read the words attributed to Jesus (as this is a Christian topic).  As regards Alan, I think he has enough to do fending off the pack of hounds snapping at him on this site each day without him feeling patronised about anything I say.  For all I know he might agree with me and if not he is quite capable of commenting on what I have said.  If I had thought that I would upset anybody's sensitivities then I could just as easily have used the word 'Christian' in place of 'Alan' but Maeght's post involved Alan.

But he doesn't do any 'fending off'!! He just sits there, sometimes quoting the words of others, but not really reading them; wearing huge blinkers which enable him to avoid taking in their meaning; then typing a selection of the core vocabhulary he uses. 

[floo]

You guys are not just patronizing but downright insulting to all spiritual and religious people. That is not likely to change is it?!

If people make daft statements be they religious or non believers, it is right to challenge them.

[Maeght]

You guys are not just patronizing but downright insulting to all spiritual and religious people. That is not likely to change is it?!

Can you show examples of where I have been insulting orpatronising  please.

[torridon]

But in this you are presuming that the intention to make an incision is totally devoid of the surgeon's conscious perception.   Can you not see how ridiculous this presumption is?

No, conscious perception is preceded by subconscious perception and that informs preconscious intention.   Subconscious perception is faster than conscious perception, subject to less lag.  Consciousness is the end-product of all this processing.  Think of it like a memory, which it is actually.  I can remember childhood holidays in Scarborough when I was a kid.  I can also remember what happened a split second ago, and this is what our consciousness stream is, the fully formed final edition of a movie-like memory stream of what has just happened to us.  The main difference between my memories of childhood and consciousness is that the latter is subject to continuous ongoing update, whilst we are awake.  You could compare it to a streamed internet service of a live broadcast, we take it to be in real time, but is in reality subject to a small time lag.  By the time that final cut of our inner movie is formed, we are already on the way, starting to make choices and starting to take action based on preliminary preconscious perception.

[torridon]

That is true only in a closed system. If the system is open to outside interventions and influences...the results are not just a linear extrapolation of past conditions....the situation becomes much more complex and intriguing. That is what we find in all the complexity and Emergent Properties that arise for no clear reason at all.

Covered this only a week ago I seem to recall.  If a closed system is subject to outside influences, then it is not a closed system at all.

[ekim]

Ekim, I looked back and didn't find your comment patronising towards Alan, at all. Your contributions and Sriram's have given balance to this thread and I've found your efforts in trying to explain what you think Alan is saying very useful.

Thanks Sweetpea.  I think this thread is beyond balance.

[ekim]

  Logic - it hurts!!!

.. then give it a rest for a while.  Try a little muthos instead of logos.  It might sooth your pain.

[ekim]

But he doesn't do any 'fending off'!! He just sits there, sometimes quoting the words of others, but not really reading them; wearing huge blinkers which enable him to avoid taking in their meaning; then typing a selection of the core vocabhulary he uses.

Perhaps that's his way of 'fending off' or coping with a dozen or so posters often with lengthy diatribes.  He possibly doesn't have the time to read and digest every post.  At least he doesn't resort to 'offending'.