Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

It's counter-intuitive to get consciousness from deterministic, material systems, you have provided no reason to think it's impossible. On the other hand, your notion of freedom is absolutely logically impossible because it leads directly to a contradiction.

When will you get it into your head that your problem is logic, not physics?

But your notion of freedom is not freedom, just inevitable uncontrollable reaction to a current state of existence.

The soul only exists in the present, consciously perceives the present and consciously interacts with the present.  Time is a dimension which exists in this material universe, and according to physicist Stephen Hawkins, time as we know it began with the Big Bang.  It is quite possible that the soul, not being of this universe, does not exist in time, but only perceives the passing of time through its perception of human sensory data.  As such it can't be subject to the same laws of cause and effect we see in our material universe, but will do everything in its own timeless existence.  This is just my postulated theory which may seem strange to you, but as Arthur C Clark once said - The truth, as always, will be far stranger.

So do not try to limit your understanding of reality to what can be squeezed in to fit within our limited human knowledge, but accept reality as it is and use your precious gift of freewill to the full.

[Gordon]

But your notion of freedom is not freedom, just inevitable uncontrollable reaction to a current state of existence.

The soul only exists in the present, consciously perceives the present and consciously interacts with the present.

How do you know this?

Time is a dimension which exists in this material universe, and according to physicist Stephen Hawkins, time as we know it began with the Big Bang.  It is quite possible that the soul, not being of this universe, does not exist in time, but only perceives the passing of time through its perception of human sensory data.

How do you know this?

As such it can't be subject to the same laws of cause and effect we see in our material universe, but will do everything in its own timeless existence.

How do you know this?

This is just my postulated theory which may seem strange to you, but as Arthur C Clark once said - The truth, as always, will be far stranger.

It may be your theory, but it reads like fantasy fiction.

So do not try to limit your understanding of reality to what can be squeezed in to fit within our limited human knowledge, but accept reality as it is and use your precious gift of freewill to the full.

You want us to 'accept reality' by accepting what you assert, when for what you assert you have no basis for claiming knowledge of, and what you assert is illogical - and yet you expect us to take it seriously!

[Stranger]

But your notion of freedom is not freedom, just inevitable uncontrollable reaction to a current state of existence.

That is the only thing that makes sense. If my choices aren't fully the result of the person I am and the situation I'm in, then they cannot possibly express the freedom of the person I am to do as it wants in the given situation.

If a choice isn't fully the result of the person I am and the situation, then the person I am is not in control and so cannot be free in any real sense.

The soul only exists in the present, consciously perceives the present and consciously interacts with the present.  Time is a dimension which exists in this material universe, and according to physicist Stephen Hawkins, time as we know it began with the Big Bang.  It is quite possible that the soul, not being of this universe, does not exist in time, but only perceives the passing of time through its perception of human sensory data.  As such it can't be subject to the same laws of cause and effect we see in our material universe, but will do everything in its own timeless existence.  This is just my postulated theory which may seem strange to you, but as Arthur C Clark once said - The truth, as always, will be far stranger.

All of which means exactly nothing as far as I can see. If something is not within time then it cannot go through any decision making process because a process requires time. It certainly doesn't even begin to address the logical problem. Choices do happen at particular moments in time and at that moment there is a certain amount of information available (including the choice maker's state of mind), if that information does not fully decide the matter, then there is literally no more information that can, so any remaining choice must be for no reason (random).

So do not try to limit your understanding of reality to what can be squeezed in to fit within our limited human knowledge, but accept reality as it is and use your precious gift of freewill to the full.

That's funny. Reality as it is, is exactly what I'm trying to get you to accept. Your nonsense version of freedom simply doesn't make sense, doesn't accord to my experience, wouldn't work even if it were possible, and wouldn't be worth having even if it could work.

[Alan Burns]

That's funny. Reality as it is, is exactly what I'm trying to get you to accept. Your nonsense version of freedom simply doesn't make sense, doesn't accord to my experience, wouldn't work even if it were possible, and wouldn't be worth having even if it could work.

yet I am free to use my gift of free thought to offer alternative scenarios based on the conscious willpower of the human soul, which reflect the reality I perceive that I am free to choose my own thoughts, words and actions.

[BeRational]

yet I am free to use my gift of free thought to offer alternative scenarios based on the conscious willpower of the human soul, which reflect the reality I perceive that I am free to choose my own thoughts, words and actions.

How can you tell?

How do you know it does not just feel that way?

[torridon]

yet I am free to use my gift of free thought to offer alternative scenarios based on the conscious willpower of the human soul, which reflect the reality I perceive that I am free to choose my own thoughts, words and actions.

That is flawed, born of habitually poor conceptualisation and rationalisation of how thoughts work.  As far as conscious thoughts go, we do not choose our thoughts; thoughts happen, thoughts occur to us, thoughts cross our mind.  We do not delve into our subconscious mind, inspect the thoughts down there and decide to bring one out into the light and think it. It doesn't work like that and couldn't possibly work like that. All our thoughts originate in subconscious levels of mind and by subliminal processes of prioritisation, some thoughts are fleetingly escalated into conscious mind, at which point "we" are aware of them.  Neuroscience has a name for this phenomenon, it is known as the dolphin model of cognition - like dolphins spend most of their time just below the surface of the ocean, so too our thoughts spend most of their time just below the level of conscious awareness and only fleetingly emerge into the light.

So it may feel like you are choosing your thoughts, but that is not what is really happening, in fact it would be closer to the truth to say that your thoughts choose you. If you happen to have a good thought, you can act upon it, but we cannot just choose to have a good thought - all thoughts compete with each other for dominion and the thought we 'choose' to act upon is the one that wins out in that battle.  There is no place for a concept of 'freedom' in this.  That 'freedom' is an emergent phenomenon of higher levels of mind, it is a feeling, just as being hot is a feeling or being confused is a feeling.  All feelings are constructions derived from lower levels of mind, all of which operates on deterministic principles. 

You don't need to accept neuroscience findings on trust to get your head round this, there are simple thought experiments you can use to demonstrate the truth of it to yourself through personal experience. For instance, name a capital city; just name the first one that comes to mind.  To do that, did you consciously inspect your stored memories looking for a capital city ?  Or did it somehow just emerge into mind, seemingly by itself ?   Truth is, we do not choose our thoughts, but rather our conscious thoughts are delivered up to us from, and by, lower levels of mind.

[Stranger]

yet I am free to use my gift of free thought to offer alternative scenarios based on the conscious willpower of the human soul, which reflect the reality I perceive that I am free to choose my own thoughts, words and actions.

You haven't offered any alternative scenarios - a self-contradictory impossibility isn't an alternative.

You can't be free in any real way nor can you be in control unless your choices are fully the result of your personality and state of mind at the moment applied to the circumstances.

[ekim]

Truth is, we do not choose our thoughts, but rather our conscious thoughts are delivered up to us from, and by, lower levels of mind.

I suspect that Alan's reply might be that the 'us' which thoughts arise into is the conscious soul which is capable of selecting from a variety of thoughts and emotions e.g. to select forgiveness rather than revenge, to engage in benevolence rather than malevolence.  It may take some self training but then that is what a lot of religious ritual is about, altering behaviour in the face of instinctual or habitual thoughts, reactions and prejudices.

[torridon]

I suspect that Alan's reply might be that the 'us' which thoughts arise into is the conscious soul which is capable of selecting from a variety of thoughts and emotions e.g. to select forgiveness rather than revenge, to engage in benevolence rather than malevolence.  It may take some self training but then that is what a lot of religious ritual is about, altering behaviour in the face of instinctual or habitual thoughts, reactions and prejudices.

Doubtless he would.  But then I would have to note that that process of selection is always going to come down to identifying the option that can muster the most appeal in the moment. We cannot force one thought to be more appealing than another; our minds resolve choice through ancient principles of comparative emotional values; every proposition,every possibility is rendered on a scale of biological emotional value and we act on which ever possibility has strongest emotional appeal in the moment.

[Alan Burns]

How can you tell?

How do you know it does not just feel that way?

By results

(and you still need to exercise your freedom to think by trying to consciously assess whether or not it is a feeling)

[Gordon]

By results

(and you still need to exercise your freedom to think by trying to consciously assess whether or not it is a feeling)

Super: so how quantifying these 'results'.

[Stranger]

By results

I've asked you many times how you think our experience would be different if we were deterministic and you've never answered. You just keep on with the baseless assertion that our experience of freedom is evidence for your self-contradictory, totally impossible version of 'freedom'...

[Alan Burns]

That is flawed, born of habitually poor conceptualisation and rationalisation of how thoughts work.  As far as conscious thoughts go, we do not choose our thoughts; thoughts happen, thoughts occur to us, thoughts cross our mind.  We do not delve into our subconscious mind, inspect the thoughts down there and decide to bring one out into the light and think it. It doesn't work like that and couldn't possibly work like that. All our thoughts originate in subconscious levels of mind and by subliminal processes of prioritisation, some thoughts are fleetingly escalated into conscious mind, at which point "we" are aware of them.  Neuroscience has a name for this phenomenon, it is known as the dolphin model of cognition - like dolphins spend most of their time just below the surface of the ocean, so too our thoughts spend most of their time just below the level of conscious awareness and only fleetingly emerge into the light.

So it may feel like you are choosing your thoughts, but that is not what is really happening, in fact it would be closer to the truth to say that your thoughts choose you. If you happen to have a good thought, you can act upon it, but we cannot just choose to have a good thought - all thoughts compete with each other for dominion and the thought we 'choose' to act upon is the one that wins out in that battle.  There is no place for a concept of 'freedom' in this.  That 'freedom' is an emergent phenomenon of higher levels of mind, it is a feeling, just as being hot is a feeling or being confused is a feeling.  All feelings are constructions derived from lower levels of mind, all of which operates on deterministic principles. 

You don't need to accept neuroscience findings on trust to get your head round this, there are simple thought experiments you can use to demonstrate the truth of it to yourself through personal experience. For instance, name a capital city; just name the first one that comes to mind.  To do that, did you consciously inspect your stored memories looking for a capital city ?  Or did it somehow just emerge into mind, seemingly by itself ?   Truth is, we do not choose our thoughts, but rather our conscious thoughts are delivered up to us from, and by, lower levels of mind.

But can you not see the irony that in consciously composing this well thought out reply, you are providing ample evidence that you, Torri, have the freedom to drive your own thought processes in order to back up your chosen point of view (even though is is obviously wrong).  This post of yours provides far more evidence of your ability to consciously choose than the trivial example of choosing a capital city.

[torridon]

But can you not see the irony that in consciously composing this well thought out reply, you are providing ample evidence that you, Torri, have the freedom to drive your own thought processes in order to back up your chosen point of view (even though is is obviously wrong).  This post of yours provides far more evidence of your ability to consciously choose than the trivial example of choosing a capital city.

All that illustrates is that you didn't read the post; as usual with you, it's dismissing thoughtful in depth reasoning with trivial handwaving

[Alan Burns]

Super: so how quantifying these 'results'.

Simple
I choose what I want to do
I do it
I check that it is done

[Stranger]

But can you not see the irony that in consciously composing this well thought out reply, you are providing ample evidence that you, Torri, have the freedom to drive your own thought processes in order to back up your chosen point of view (even though is is obviously wrong).  This post of yours provides far more evidence of your ability to consciously choose than the trivial example of choosing a capital city.

As I've said before, our experience is not evidence for your self-contradictory and impossible notion of freedom. Every single idea about consciousness and free will seeks to explain our experience, so claiming it as evidence for yours is tantamount to lying.

You are being dishonest.

[Alan Burns]

All that illustrates is that you didn't read the post; as usual with you, it's dismissing thoughtful in depth reasoning with trivial handwaving

Of course I read it.
It attempts to describe conscious thought processes as some form alphabet soup in which perceived thoughts are just the result of letters appearing on the surface.

But this is pure conjecture because we do not know what defines conscious thought in physical terms.  All we have is correlation of some physical neurological activity.

[Stranger]

But this is pure conjecture because we do not know what defines conscious thought in physical terms.

Just as soon as you can "define" conscious thought (say exactly how it works) in any terms, the words I deleted will become relevant, as it is they clearly aren't.

All we have is correlation of some physical neurological activity.

Which is a great deal more than you have, which is a self-contradictory story with no evidence.

[torridon]

Of course I read it.
It attempts to describe conscious thought processes as some form alphabet soup in which perceived thoughts are just the result of letters appearing on the surface....

Not conjecture at all, I am merely relating what we have discovered from research; and I backed it up with a simple thought experiment that anyone can do any time to verify that the principle truthfully reflects our conscious experience.   we don't always need high end brain scanning equipment to discover properties of our own minds.

[ippy]

Simple
I choose what I want to do
I do it
I check that it is done

Do you know Alan, I keep telling my wife I'm always right, I've no idea why she wont accept this is so?

Commiserations your really sad ideas Alan, ippy.

[Alan Burns]

Not conjecture at all, I am merely relating what we have discovered from research; and I backed it up with a simple thought experiment that anyone can do any time to verify that the principle truthfully reflects our conscious experience.   we don't always need high end brain scanning equipment to discover properties of our own minds.

So do you honestly believe that the contents of your very detailed post were from thoughts lurking in your subconscious before you became aware of them?  If so, your attempted explanation of how our conscious thoughts are determined is becoming truly bizarre.

And in regard to the simplistic example you gave, try considering the thought processes involved in solving a cryptic clue on a crossword.  Does the answer just pop into your head?

[BeRational]

By results

(and you still need to exercise your freedom to think by trying to consciously assess whether or not it is a feeling)

What results?

It just feels that way after the event.

It feels as if you make decisions in real time, but this is not true. The brain edits a version that emerges at the conscious level.

You continually describe what it feels like. We all know what it fells like, as we feel the same.

[BeRational]

Simple
I choose what I want to do
I do it
I check that it is done

No.
A decision is made to do something. You did not chose it.

[torridon]

So do you honestly believe that the contents of your very detailed post were from thoughts lurking in your subconscious before you became aware of them?  If so, your attempted explanation of how our conscious thoughts are determined is becoming truly bizarre.

And in regard to the simplistic example you gave, try considering the thought processes involved in solving a cryptic clue on a crossword.  Does the answer just pop into your head?

It's not like entire sentences, fully worded, are delivered up into conscious mind en bloc.  More like one word at a time.  Subconscious mind is vast compared to conscious mind; it stores huge amounts of information but only a tiny amount can be held in conscious mind at any time.

When you thought of a capital city you did not need to know where that information was stored in your brain, it might have been in the hippocampus, or the amygdala, or in any of a dozen other cortical structures. You don't need to know that just as when you execute a read in Python you don't need to know the location of the disc sectors involved. However, this thought experiment reveals subliminal brain function to be something altogether more intelligent than low level computer software that translates high level requests into low level machine code - when you try to think of that capital city, say Berlin came to mind, it was not the case that you submitted a 'read request' for Berlin, it was your subconscious mind that made the choice;  it made that choice without 'your' knowledge, without 'your' specific instruction. Similarly as I write this sentence, each word is yielded up to 'me' from lower levels of mind as I make demands for appropriate words.  I might know 20000 or so words but they are not held in conscious mind; my subconscious mind makes choices for me.  This is the insight revealed by the thought experiment.

[Alan Burns]

It's not like entire sentences, fully worded, are delivered up into conscious mind en bloc.  More like one word at a time.  Subconscious mind is vast compared to conscious mind; it stores huge amounts of information but only a tiny amount can be held in conscious mind at any time.

When you thought of a capital city you did not need to know where that information was stored in your brain, it might have been in the hippocampus, or the amygdala, or in any of a dozen other cortical structures. You don't need to know that just as when you execute a read in Python you don't need to know the location of the disc sectors involved. However, this thought experiment reveals subliminal brain function to be something altogether more intelligent than low level computer software that translates high level requests into low level machine code - when you try to think of that capital city, say Berlin came to mind, it was not the case that you submitted a 'read request' for Berlin, it was your subconscious mind that made the choice;  it made that choice without 'your' knowledge, without 'your' specific instruction. Similarly as I write this sentence, each word is yielded up to 'me' from lower levels of mind as I make demands for appropriate words.  I might know 20000 or so words but they are not held in conscious mind; my subconscious mind makes choices for me.  This is the insight revealed by the thought experiment.

You are going into great detail about how our brains might perform data retrieval, but this says nothing about what initiates the initial request for the data or how the request is made.  Your thought experiment reveals nothing about what drives our thought processes.  Have you considered the thought processes involved in solving a cryptic clue in a crossword?  Do you still maintain that it all comes from the subconscious before we become aware of it?