Searching for GOD...

[jjohnjil]

And that, of course, is so very , very sad; when AB could be free from what looks to me like the vice-like trap of religious faith belief 

AB may feel he is free, but I speak from personal experience when I compare how I felt when I finaly erased the belief that there was a God from its very small space in my brain to the wholeness and completeness I felt afterwards and how I'd been feeling for ages anyway. I hardly noticed the disappearance since it had faded into  so small a belief.

Hi Susan

I was sent to Sunday School as a kid and, even then, the whole thing seemed ridiculous to me.  That said, you have to sympathise with those who had it drilled in so hard that even questioning it feels like betrayal to them.

Sparky is obviously in that category and he's been convinced that anyone who argues against that belief, has been sent by the Devil - a real entity to him!

I think he has to be pitied more than anything.

[torridon]

I agree.
But if the determining factors are defined entirely by physical chains of cause and effect, there is no choice.
In order to choose, I need the consciously driven power to invoke a choice between two or more feasible alternatives which is not just an inevitable, unavoidable reaction to previous events.

If a choice is not entirely derived from the relevant factors then it must be derived from irrelevant factors. This would render the choice random. How hard can this be ?

[Gordon]

I chose words which I felt expressed the meaning of what I wished to convey.  It was all driven by my conscious human will, and in no way could it be contemplated as being entirely composed by subconscious activity.

I know you won't get the irony, Alan - but the words you 'choose' are now so utterly predictable, being variations of 'inevitable, unavoidable reaction to previous events yada yada yada', that your posts come across as being your inevitable and unavoidable reaction to having subconscious blind faith that influences your thinking and determines what you wrongly consider to be wholly free conscious choices.

[Alan Burns]

If a choice is not entirely derived from the relevant factors then it must be derived from irrelevant factors. This would render the choice random. How hard can this be ?

Once more:
The only relevant factor in any choice is the consciously controlled will of the human being.
Without it there can be no choice - just the inevitable pre programmed reaction dictated by forces and events beyond our conscious control.

[BeRational]

Once more:
The only relevant factor in any choice is the consciously controlled will of the human being.
Without it there can be no choice - just the inevitable pre programmed reaction dictated by forces and events beyond our conscious control.

Which you demonstrate in all your predictable posts.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Once more:
The only relevant factor in any choice is the consciously controlled will of the human being.
Without it there can be no choice - just the inevitable pre programmed reaction dictated by forces and events beyond our conscious control.

Once more: you're talking vacuous nonsense for reasons that have been explained to you countless times but that you keep ignoring. Still, never mind eh? Rather than do the decent thing and actually argue your corner you can just label people with more robust thinking than yours "forces of evil" and then continue blithely on in your misplaced certainties.

[Stranger]

Once more:
The only relevant factor in any choice is the consciously controlled will of the human being.

Once again: stating that it's "the consciously controlled will of the human being" is utterly irrelevant when it comes to the question of how that will arrives at its choices. Either it does so entirely due to pre-existing reasons or some part of the choice is for no reasons, so must be random.

You aren't addressing the question, you're avoiding it and then asserting that the human will does something that is fundamentally self-contradictory.

Without it there can be no choice - just the inevitable pre programmed reaction dictated by forces and events beyond our conscious control.

There is nothing about a choice being entirely the result of pre-exiting reasons that is incompatible with it being under conscious control.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

First, as I called you out on completely misrepresenting me and explained again what I actually said does it not occur to you that the decent thing to do here would be to apologise and to commit not to do it again?

Yes, I should have acknowledged this obvious mistake, so please accept my belated apologies for this.

Second, You have consistently elided the depth of your feeling about an experience into the validity of your explanation for it (“I really feel at my deepest level that…therefore...” etc). The point about these examples was to show you that there’s no relationship between the depth of your feeling about something and the quality of your explanation for it. No-one care how "deeply", "profoundly", "really" or anything else you feel as though you have “free” will because for explanatory purposes the strength of your feeling about that is evidentially worthless. It simply has no relevance, any more than the strength of your feeling that you touch the keyboard had any evidential value.

But without the freedom to control my own thought processes, I would have no power to feel deeply about anything.

Why not now then say something like, “ah yes, I see that now and I commit never again to adduce as evidence for my explanation for something how strongly I happen to feel the experience of it to be”?   

You need to consider what precisely defines a deep feeling, and how it is generated by nothing but predetermined electrochemical activity

Third, yes the more robust explanations can be validated by reasoning and evidence that go beyond our mere feelings about something. Why then just dismiss out of hand any reasoning and evidence that points to consciousness as a naturalistic phenomenon because your experience of it happens to feel differently?     

Contrary to what you imply, the scientific evidence you quote does not deny what I claim to be the truth, because it does not come anywhere near to explaining what comprises our conscious awareness and freedom to choose.  On the other hand, the evidence for you being able to drive your own conscious thought processes is not just a feeling - is is evidenced in your ability to compose this post I am replying to.

No, that isn’t “the problem” at all. There isn’t a problem other than that the models for consciousness we have so far still leave open questions and so are not complete. The same is true though for the theory of gravity, but as that doesn’t “effectively remove” (as you put it) a religious belief you happen to hold about pixies holding stuff down with very thin strings (the epistemic equivalent of “soul” by the way) you don’t just “deny” that theory regardless of its content.   

Like gravity, the evidence for the existence of the human soul is in what it does, because there is no other feasible explanation for what it does, which is to enable the existence of conscious human will.

This is the fundamental dishonesty at the heart of your position yet you’ll never, ever it seems even recognise it let alone attempt to engage with it.

I see no deliberate dishonesty whatsoever in what I post.
But if there was any deliberate dishonesty, surely this would in itself be evidence for my personal freedom to enact the dishonesty I am accused of.

[Stranger]

I see no deliberate dishonesty whatsoever in what I post.
But if there was any deliberate dishonesty, surely this would in itself be evidence for my personal freedom to enact the dishonesty I am accused of.

FFS Alan, get it into your tiny mind that NOBODY is arguing that you don't have the freedom to do as you wish. PLEASE! At least try to understand that EVERYBODY is trying to explain what we all experience. NOBODY thinks that we can't act in the way we want to.

[Alan Burns]

Once again: stating that it's "the consciously controlled will of the human being" is utterly irrelevant when it comes to the question of how that will arrives at its choices. Either it does so entirely due to pre-existing reasons or some part of the choice is for no reasons, so must be random.

You aren't addressing the question, you're avoiding it and then asserting that the human will does something that is fundamentally self-contradictory.

There is nothing about a choice being entirely the result of pre-exiting reasons that is incompatible with it being under conscious control.

You appear to be thinking of choices being made in the same manner as a computer program executing an "if, then, else" statement in which the resulting action is entirely predetermined by data values or pre existing conditions.  Yet you also claim that we have freedom to choose.  Can you not see that such choices offer no freedom.  You may claim that the computer is in control, but the only control involved was in the human will of the programmer who consciously chose the conditional action for the computer to take.

Our choices are driven simply by our conscious will which exists and acts in the present and is not predetermined by the past.  You need to come to terms with the truth that you are far more than just a sophisticated biologically controlled machine.  We all have this amazing gift of freedom which defies any physical explanation, but it defines who and what we are.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Yes, I should have acknowledged this obvious mistake, so please accept my belated apologies for this.

Thank you.

But without the freedom to control my own thought processes, I would have no power to feel deeply about anything.

Utter nonsense. You can feel deeply at an emotional, instinctive level about all sorts of things “without the freedom to control your own thought processes” as you put it. When your first born was handed to you did you control your thought processes to decide whether or not you’d love it, or did you feel an overwhelming upswelling of love that emerged unbidden?

You need to consider what precisely defines a deep feeling, and how it is generated by nothing but predetermined electrochemical activity

No I don’t because it’s entirely irrelevant to the point, namely that the depth of feeling about how you feel about an experience is not correlated to the quality of your explanation for it. You keep telling us that you really, really feel that you exercise (your irrational definition of) free will, and that therefore that strength of feeling somehow validates your explanation for it. It doesn’t. There’s simply no connection from strength of experience to quality of explanation.   

Why is this hard for you to grasp given how simple the point it? 

Contrary to what you imply, the scientific evidence you quote does not deny what I claim to be the truth,…

First mistake: negative proof fallacy. Science cannot “deny” any conjecture that’s unfalsifiable – souls, leprechauns and orbiting teapots alike. What science actually does is to provide explanations of sufficient robustness to provide provisional truths, and it’s indifferent to conjectures and speculations it cannot investigate. 

…because it does not come anywhere near to explaining what comprises our conscious awareness and freedom to choose.

Second mistake: the god of the gaps fallacy. Gaps in scientific knowledge do not justify inserting explanatory claims for which there’s no evidence whatsoever.   

On the other hand, the evidence for you being able to drive your own conscious thought processes is not just a feeling - is is evidenced in your ability to compose this post I am replying to.

Mistake 3: the “evidence of your ability to compose” is only evidence that you’ve done something. It isn’t evidence for your explanation for it though, especially when that explanation is so fundamentally irrational. 

Like gravity, the evidence for the existence of the human soul is in what it does, because there is no other feasible explanation for what it does, which is to enable the existence of conscious human will.

Wrong again. There is a “feasible explanation” that’s a significant way down the road to but that is incomplete. There’s no evidence of any kind though for a “human soul” that you think would complete or replace it. Magical thinking in the face of ignorance is just very, very bad thinking and you should stop doing it.   

I see no deliberate dishonesty whatsoever in what I post.

I know you don’t. That’s your problem. A good place to start would be for you finally to attempt at least to engage with the arguments and rebuttals you’re given rather than repeat endlessly the vapid mantras on which you rely.

But if there was any deliberate dishonesty, surely this would in itself be evidence for my personal freedom to enact the dishonesty I am accused of.

No, for the reasons you keep ignoring.

[Stranger]

You appear to be thinking of choices being made in the same manner as a computer program executing an "if, then, else" statement in which the resulting action is entirely predetermined by data values or pre existing conditions.  Yet you also claim that we have freedom to choose.  Can you not see that such choices offer no freedom.  You may claim that the computer is in control, but the only control involved was in the human will of the programmer who consciously chose the conditional action for the computer to take.

I note that again you've totally ignored the majority of what I said and just restated your self-contradictory, hence impossible, dogma.

For a human (or anything) to be in control there must be some way for it to make its choices. That way must either be done without anything happening for no reason (randomness), in which case it is, by definition, a deterministic system which makes choices entirely due to pre-existing reasons (the inputs and its internal state), or some part of its choice must be for no reason and hence random.

Trying to play with the definition of the word 'choice' is blatant evasion of that central dilemma that you are simply refusing to face up to.

Our choices are driven simply by our conscious will which exists and acts in the present and is not predetermined by the past.

This is just more evasion of the above point. The "present", according to all the evidence backed theories we have, is pretty much fictional - there is certainly no possibility of any (choice making) process happening in it, so the "exists and acts in the present" is empty verbiage. As stated above: to the extent that a choice is not predetermined by the past, it is determined by nothing, and is therefore random.

You can't introduce something new in a (fictional) present moment that isn't itself either because of the past (predetermined) or not (random).

You need to come to terms with the truth...

Says the guy who will not face up to simple logic.

...that you are far more than just a sophisticated biologically controlled machine.  We all have this amazing gift of freedom which defies any physical explanation, but it defines who and what we are.

And the baseless assertions just go on and on...

[Nearly Sane]

Moderator Please note a number of posts have been removed following on a post that was a copy and paste from another site and was therefore effectively a derail. This relates to the actions the Mod Team are taking as regards The Living Cell thread which needs a tidy up.

[Alan Burns]

I have not argued against your freedom to choose.

You would have freedom to choose your words if your choices were entirely due to pre-existing reasons - stop dishonestly misrepresenting the argument. What is totally impossible is to make a choice that is entirely due to pre-existing reasons (not random) but not entirely due to pre-existing reasons. It's a blatant contradiction.

Just to point out what is wrong with this truly bizarre version of compatibalism:

"You would have freedom to choose your words if your choices were entirely due to pre-existing reasons"


Can you not see the obvious contradiction in this statement?
If my so called choices are entirely dictated by pre existing reasons, how can you possibly conclude that we have freedom to choose? 

[Alan Burns]

This is just more evasion of the above point. The "present", according to all the evidence backed theories we have, is pretty much fictional - there is certainly no possibility of any (choice making) process happening in it, so the "exists and acts in the present" is empty verbiage. As stated above: to the extent that a choice is not predetermined by the past, it is determined by nothing, and is therefore random.

You can't introduce something new in a (fictional) present moment that isn't itself either because of the past (predetermined) or not (random).

It gets worse:
'The "present", according to all the evidence backed theories we have, is pretty much fictional '
So in order to fit your theories, you are assuming that there is no such thing as "the present".
It would appear that you must be living on a different planet to the rest of us.
We all exist in the present.
The past has been and gone and does not exist any more

[Stranger]

Just to point out what is wrong with this truly bizarre version of compatibalism:

"You would have freedom to choose your words if your choices were entirely due to pre-existing reasons"


Can you not see the obvious contradiction in this statement?
If my so called choices are entirely dictated by pre existing reasons, how can you possibly conclude that we have freedom to choose?

Oh FFS Alan, how many more times do you need this explaining to you and how many more times do you need it explained to you that the only possible way in which a choice can be made that isn't entirely due to pre-existing reasons is to introduce something that is not due to any pre-existing reason, which means that it's for no reason and therefore random?

Seriously Alan, I just don't believe that you have forgotten the multiple explanations that have been given to you, so your question is disingenuous.

How about you stop the silly repetition of the silly questions that have been answered multiple times, stop the endless repetition of your blind faith dogmas, stop the endless repetition of the dishonest pretence that your ability to do as you want is evidence of your self-contradictory notion of free will and actually honestly address the argument that have been put to you and obvious contradiction in your own position?

[Stranger]

'The "present", according to all the evidence backed theories we have, is pretty much fictional '
So in order to fit your theories, you are assuming that there is no such thing as "the present".

This is basic physics. There is no privileged time called 'now'. The time called 'now' has no more significance in physics than the place called 'here'.

Even if you ignore that, the notion of simultaneity is relative. In other words, there is no such thing as an absolute single moment in time that extends any distance in space. What is simultaneous with (say) me pressing 'post' after typing this, where you are, depends on the observer. So any absolute notion of "the present" could not, in any even, extend any distance in space.

Even if you ignore all that, the present would last exactly zero time, so literally nothing can happen in the present.

This is really basic, stuff.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It gets worse:
'The "present", according to all the evidence backed theories we have, is pretty much fictional '
So in order to fit your theories, you are assuming that there is no such thing as "the present".
It would appear that you must be living on a different planet to the rest of us.
We all exist in the present.
The past has been and gone and does not exist any more

What amount of time do you think "the present" exists for?

This is just another example of your intuition-based folk explanation being used to dismiss rational thought.

[jjohnjil]

This is basic physics. There is no privileged time called 'now'. The time called 'now' has no more significance in physics than the place called 'here'.

Even if you ignore that, the notion of simultaneity is relative. In other words, there is no such thing as an absolute single moment in time that extends any distance in space. What is simultaneous with (say) me pressing 'post' after typing this, where you are, depends on the observer. So any absolute notion of "the present" could not, in any even, extend any distance in space.

Even if you ignore all that, the present would last exactly zero time, so literally nothing can happen in the present.

This is really basic, stuff.

To be fair, Stranger, we all use present as meaning today, this week, even this year.  Technically, as soon as you say this is the present, it's already in the past, but not in everyday language.

[bluehillside Retd.]

jj,

To be fair, Stranger, we all use present as meaning today, this week, even this year.  Technically, as soon as you say this is the present, it's already in the past, but not in everyday language.

Yes but right there is AB's problem - he relies on common perceptions of experiences for his explanations for them, when more considered reasoning provides different explanations entirely.

[Enki]

Just to point out what is wrong with this truly bizarre version of compatibalism:

"You would have freedom to choose your words if your choices were entirely due to pre-existing reasons"


Can you not see the obvious contradiction in this statement?
If my so called choices are entirely dictated by pre existing reasons, how can you possibly conclude that we have freedom to choose?

Don't be silly, Alan.

Freedom of choice describes an individual's opportunity and autonomy to perform an action selected from at least two available options, unconstrained by external parties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_choice

So, no contradiction whatsoever. By this definition one has the opportunity to make a choice, and the autonomy to be able to do so. At no point does it describe how that choice is made.

[Stranger]

To be fair, Stranger, we all use present as meaning today, this week, even this year.  Technically, as soon as you say this is the present, it's already in the past, but not in everyday language.

Yes but this is a technical discussion about whether minds are deterministic systems.

As blue said, Alan is (yet again) trying to leap from "it subjectively seems like this to me" to "it must be like this", in effect "it's obvious, innit?" Whereas we know that many things aren't the way they subjectively seem. A lot of what we know from science is highly counter-intuitive.

[Alan Burns]

Oh FFS Alan, how many more times do you need this explaining to you and how many more times do you need it explained to you that the only possible way in which a choice can be made that isn't entirely due to pre-existing reasons is to introduce something that is not due to any pre-existing reason, which means that it's for no reason and therefore random?

But you have failed to explain how a choice which is entirely defined by pre existing reasons can be classified with the word "freedom".  Surely any concept of freedom exists in the present, not the past.

Seriously Alan, I just don't believe that you have forgotten the multiple explanations that have been given to you, so your question is disingenuous.

But your explanations totally fail to explain the concept of freedom

How about you stop the silly repetition of the silly questions that have been answered multiple times, stop the endless repetition of your blind faith dogmas, stop the endless repetition of the dishonest pretence that your ability to do as you want is evidence of your self-contradictory notion of free will and actually honestly address the argument that have been put to you and obvious contradiction in your own position?

My position is that the freedom of our human will exists and is demonstrated in every post that you or I consciously compose.  Your explanations totally fail to what constitutes of our freedom to consciously drive our own thoughts, words and actions.

[Alan Burns]

Yes but this is a technical discussion about whether minds are deterministic systems.

As blue said, Alan is (yet again) trying to leap from "it subjectively seems like this to me" to "it must be like this", in effect "it's obvious, innit?" Whereas we know that many things aren't the way they subjectively seem. A lot of what we know from science is highly counter-intuitive.

But in your opinion, what defined the originating events which determined the content of this reply?
You did not just seem to compose this reply, you actually did it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But you have failed to explain how a choice which is entirely defined by pre existing reasons can be classified with the word "freedom".  Surely any concept of freedom exists in the prestent, not the past.

One of your various problems AB is that of semantics. Your complaint isn’t that a deterministic model of consciousness cannot be “free”, but rather that it cannot satisfy your definition of the term “free”. That’s because your definition would require freedom to be arbitrary, random, independent of prior events etc. “Free” though is a much more nuanced term than that: I’m free in the sense that I’m not in jail, but at the same time I’m not free to murder someone or to fly by flapping my arms. 

Does that mean that I’m not free after all, or does it actually mean that I’m perfectly free in one sense but not at all in another?

Is this sinking in yet?   

But your explanations totally fail to explain the concept of freedom

That’s flatly not true. What they fail to explain is your concept of freedom, which cannot be explained by any means because it’s fundamentally contradictory and therefore irrational.

My position is that the freedom of our human will exists and is demonstrated in every post that you or I consciously compose.

A position that has been shown countless times to be flawed at the most basic level of reasoning…

Your explanations totally fail to what constitutes of our freedom to consciously drive our own thoughts, words and actions.

Wrong again – as I’ve just explained to you (again), all it fails to do is to explain your personal concept of freedom, which is itself impossible.