Gabriella,
No, there’s every point when his words were so plainly expressed. If you think you can get inside his head (or would even want to) to discern that he actually meant something other than what he said that’s a matter for the two of you to discuss.
I don't need to get inside his head. He has expressed himself repeatedly on this thread that he thinks his soul through free will interacts with his brain to make conscious choices. And he denies a theory that rules out the "reality that we are capable of driving our own thoughts and invoking conscious choices"
Theories don’t remove any speculations that are not investigable – orbiting teapots and storks delivering babies alike.
Great. Then AB isn't denying a theory as it isn't ruling out his speculations about conscious choices or souls.
You’re fundamentally mistaken here. AB should “worry” when he baldy tells us that he rejects “any theory” that provides an explanation that doesn’t accord with his superstitious beliefs. He compounds the problem by expecting others to agree with him on the basis of his evangelism.
No, you're fundamentally mistaken, since what AB actually said was that he denies a theory that rules out the "reality that we are capable of driving our own thoughts and invoking conscious choices" as opposed to what you wrote. It's up to other people if they want to agree with him based on his evangelism or based on differing views about how the unconscious and conscious brain interacts and what else the parts of the brain interact with to produce thoughts and decisions.
Why? So far as I can tell she doesn’t even bother to engage with AB’s (and her) central problem – how would conscious a decision-making entity deal with the determined vs random problem?
That's up to you if you want to discount the issues that Magda Osman has raised because of an irrelevant point about choices being determined or random. If your desires and fears are caused by a mix of past events, your genes, and random reasons, it doesn't rule out a conscious choice between the conflicting desires and fears.
Yes you did you banana. Try reading it again without the distorting specs on. He explained himself perfectly plainly however determined you are to reinvent what he actually said. Incidentally, I can’t help but feel your pain here – each time you twist in the wind to dream up ever-more convoluted explanations of what you think he meant, he shoots you in both feet with even more bonkers stuff (“forces of evil” etc).
I can see that you keep getting distracted by all the religious talk that prevents you from addressing the argument he made about conscious choice, you banana.
Which theory are you thinking of that rules out what he thinks is happening when he writes his posts for example? If you link to it and copy and paste the relevant bit or refer me to the relevant paragraph, I'll have a read as maybe I am misunderstanding what you are getting at when you say he dismisses entirely scientific findings.
And thereby given himself a huge problem with the binary determined vs random issue. So?
Nope. The determined vs random issue is a separate issue from the argument about the conscious brain (or AB's soul) reasoning out a choice between the conflicting choices based on desires and fears thrown up by the subconscious.
Some logic 101 might help you here. What theory rules out my storks delivering babies conviction would you say? Try Russell’s teapot to see where you’ve gone wrong here.
I suggest you read what he actually said. He told us that he “denies any theory that….” etc remember?
Your initial claim was that AB consistently entirely dismisses scientific findings we do have because it provides an incomplete explanation for consciousness. I don't see him dismissing entirely scientific findings as there are no theories ruling out what he is asking some valid questions about. Some of which are being asked by other experimental psychologists. I suggest you stop getting distracted by his evangelism about souls and God that he uses to answer some of his own questions.
