Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

What third option do you propose?

The willpower of our human soul of course, which is consciously active in the present, not the past.  I know that your physical model of the material brain can't cope with the concept of determined vs predetermined, but this reflects the reality which enables our freedom to make conscious choices.

[Sebastian Toe]

Our freedom to make consciously driven choices must have a definable source which has the freedom to determine the choice. 

Can your soul count?

[Stranger]

Your argument is obviously flawed.

So you keep asserting.

If everything is entirely predetermined by past events, there can be no concept of conscious freedom to choose.

Untrue. The definition of freedom is "The power ... to act, speak, or think as one wants." There is nothing about choices being entirely due to pre-existing reasons that conflicts with that.

Any entity that makes a conscious choice must have wants, so that it can do as it wants - and those wants must come about somehow; either for pre-existing reasons or for no reason (random).

If something is entirely predetermined, it can be nothing but an unavoidable reaction.

A choice is inevitably a reaction to the circumstances in which it is made. Your use of the word "unavoidable" is deceptive, however. It implies that if you wanted to avoid an outcome you would be unable to do so. That is nonsense. The point being that you do what you want - it's want you actually want that is determined by the exact circumstances (unless there is some random element).

Our freedom to make consciously driven choices must have a definable source which has the freedom to determine the choice.

Yes, and that source must be a logically consistent system that is capable of making a choice. It cannot be self-contradictory, and hence impossible.

But in an entirely physically controlled scenario there can be no such source.

Nonsense. See above.

Once again you have totally ignored the impossibility of your own position. You cannot have something that makes a choice that is not entirely due to pre-existing reasons without introducing some element that is for no such reasons and therefore must be for no reason, which means that it is random.

Once again you have produced nothing but your own incredulity and empty assertions and have totally ignored the glaring contradiction at the heart of your own idea of freedom.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The willpower of our human soul of course, which is consciously active in the present, not the past.  I know that your physical model of the material brain can't cope with the concept of determined vs predetermined, but this reflects the reality which enables our freedom to make conscious choices.

First you just ignored the falsifications of your notion about living in the present. Why?

Second, there's no "of course" about a supposed "soul" because that's just an irrationality you've made up and now cling to as a man clings to a cement lifebelt.

Third, the "determined vs predetermined" notion is voided by logic, not "a physical model of the material brain".

Fourth, "the" reality is just your reality - and a particularly superficial one it is for its refusal ever to think about the implications of the conclusions you draw from it.

Fifth, you still have the problem of explaining how this "freedom of conscious choices" of yours would operate it it was neither determined nor random. Just relocating the same problem to a conjecture you call "soul" that's apparently magic doesn't make the problem go away.

Apart from all that though...       

[Stranger]

The willpower of our human soul of course, which is consciously active in the present, not the past.

That is not a third option - you are just answering a totally different question. It's not about what makes the choice, it's how the choice is arrived at. And once again you've totally ignored the fact that nothing can happen in the present. If you disagree, argue against it, don't just ignore it.

I know that your physical model of the material brain can't cope with the concept of determined vs predetermined... ...but this reflects the reality which enables our freedom to make conscious choices.

Once again the misrepresentation of the argument as being to do with the material brain and the nonsense that there is a difference (in this context) between determined and predetermined. If you can explain what you think the difference is without changing the question from considering how a choice is made (by what process; due to pre-existing reasons or not) to what makes the choice (the "conscious will" or whatever), then do so.

Either your mind is a deterministic system or it has some random element - those are the only logical possibilities (nothing to do with the physical world).

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

The willpower of our human soul of course, which is consciously active in the present, not the past.  I know that your physical model of the material brain can't cope with the concept of determined vs predetermined, but this reflects the reality which enables our freedom to make conscious choices.

I edited my previous response but you might not have seen it. I wrote:

ETA: All the stuff I read about Islam alters my perceptions - those are past events - so for example what I haven't learned yet logically can't influence my current choice. That's all that "determined by past events" means. Are you arguing something different when you say our choices are determined by past events?

I’ll give you a scenario of how the “will of my soul” might work - I think its will is determined by my perceptions of what I have read, learned, experienced, in so much as those are the only inputs my soul can use to decide what course of action to take. So for example I really felt like I couldn’t be bothered to volunteer to do something that I knew would be helpful to others - I hoped someone else would volunteer instead. My soul decided I should pray - it could only decide that if in the past I had learned about prayer. Once I had prayed I was able to motivate myself to volunteer as being the right thing to do. That could be my soul invoking my will power but it was still based on my perception of a prior event - the prayer. What scenario are you proposing that doesn’t rely on a prior event?

[Alan Burns]

Untrue. The definition of freedom is "The power ... to act, speak, or think as one wants." There is nothing about choices being entirely due to pre-existing reasons that conflicts with that.

Any entity that makes a conscious choice must have wants, so that it can do as it wants - and those wants must come about somehow; either for pre-existing reasons or for no reason (random).

The key word in this definition of freedom is in the meaning of the word "want".
What is it that determines what you want to do?
Is it you, or is it pre existing unavoidable consequences to events?
If we have no conscious control over what we want to do, there is no freedom.
In this scenario, to assert that we have freedom to choose is simply wrong.

[Gordon]

The key word in this definition of freedom is in the meaning of the word "want".
What is it that determines what you want to do?
Is it you, or is it pre existing unavoidable consequences to events?
If we have no conscious control over what we want to do, there is no freedom.
In this scenario, to assert that we have freedom to choose is simply wrong.

I suspect you are just talking about your own personal definition of 'freedom' here, Alan, which it seems nobody else here takes seriously since it is inherently illogical. You've undoubtedly formulated this (consciously and/or unconsciously) so as to function as a handy gap in which to drop your 'God': and it shows.

[Stranger]

The key word in this definition of freedom is in the meaning of the word "want".
What is it that determines what you want to do?

I know - that's what I said.

Is it you, or is it pre existing unavoidable consequences to events?

Saying it's "you" that determines the wants, doesn't answer the question of how wants form within you. Again, you're trying to change the question, not answer it. You've then assumed your conclusion by implying that the "unavoidable consequences to events" can't be what is going on inside you.

You've done this sort of thing over and over and when the glaring logical holes are pointed out, you just ignore them.

Your wants are either entirely the result of pre-existing reasons (internal and external) or not. If not, then some aspect of want forming must be for no reason (random).

If we have no conscious control over what we want to do, there is no freedom.

That just absurd. Of course we cannot consciously control our wants. How would we decide what to want? We'd have to know what we want to want. Then how would we decide that? By what we want to want to want? It's an infinite regress.

Of course we sometimes ignore wants but that is only because we actually want something else more. The conscious control comes in as we are weighing up our wants against possible choices - it's a process of finding out what we want most (find must acceptable) from all the different options.

There is nothing in a sensible and realistic description of conscious choice making that cannot be explained by every stage being entirely due to pre-existing conditions and the only alternative is for some part of some stage to be for no reason at all.

In this scenario, to assert that we have freedom to choose is simply wrong.

Now the attempt to redefine the English language again...

[bluehillside Retd.]

Gabriella,

I edited my previous response but you might not have seen it. I wrote:

ETA: All the stuff I read about Islam alters my perceptions - those are past events - so for example what I haven't learned yet logically can't influence my current choice. That's all that "determined by past events" means. Are you arguing something different when you say our choices are determined by past events?

I’ll give you a scenario of how the “will of my soul” might work - I think its will is determined by my perceptions of what I have read, learned, experienced, in so much as those are the only inputs my soul can use to decide what course of action to take. So for example I really felt like I couldn’t be bothered to volunteer to do something that I knew would be helpful to others - I hoped someone else would volunteer instead. My soul decided I should pray - it could only decide that if in the past I had learned about prayer. Once I had prayed I was able to motivate myself to volunteer as being the right thing to do. That could be my soul invoking my will power but it was still based on my perception of a prior event - the prayer. What scenario are you proposing that doesn’t rely on a prior event?

You’ve just jumped into the same hole that AB has dug for himself. That doesn’t tell anyone “how “the will of my soul” might work” at all – it just tells them what it would do ("decides"). When you say that “my soul decided”, how did it do that deciding – deterministically or randomly?

Your and AB’s concept has the same flaw – essentially you see “soul” as akin to a man in a restaurant choosing his dinner: “OK the menu is all written down, but then the man makes his selection from the available dishes” type of thing. The huge problem with this is that it just relocates the same problem to the man – what process does he use to do his choosing? AB’s response is a mix of silence and "I haven’t got the details worked out yet" – essentially, “it’s magic innit?”.

Do you have anything more credible to suggest? 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The key word in this definition of freedom is in the meaning of the word "want".
What is it that determines what you want to do?
Is it you, or is it pre existing unavoidable consequences to events?

For this purpose, “you” is the “pre existing unavoidable consequences to events”. If you think there to be a “you” somehow separate from that then, finally, you’d have to make an argument for it – perhaps starting with how you’d address the determined vs random problem in logic.

If we have no conscious control over what we want to do, there is no freedom.

Flat wrong for the reason I and others have explained to you many times (we have a type of freedom, but not the impossible one you assert) but you keep ignoring. Why do you do that?

In this scenario, to assert that we have freedom to choose is simply wrong.

Flat wrong for the reason I and others have explained to you many times (we have a type of freedom, but not the impossible one you assert) but you keep ignoring. Why do you do that?
 

[ekim]

Gabriella,

You’ve just jumped into the same hole that AB has dug for himself. That doesn’t tell anyone “how “the will of my soul” might work” at all – it just tells them what it would do ("decides"). When you say that “my soul decided”, how did it do that deciding – deterministically or randomly?

Your and AB’s concept has the same flaw – essentially you see “soul” as akin to a man in a restaurant choosing his dinner: “OK the menu is all written down, but then the man makes his selection from the available dishes” type of thing. The huge problem with this is that it just relocates the same problem to the man – what process does he use to do his choosing? AB’s response is a mix of silence and "I haven’t got the details worked out yet" – essentially, “it’s magic innit?”.

Do you have anything more credible to suggest?

I think Gabriella is explaining the 'how' as it appears to her.  Prayer is her process of summoning up the will power to overcome the previous inertial against volunteering.  To do so she has first to be conscious of that negative 'will' (or 'won't' as we like to call it) and prayer empowers her to choose differently.  Unlike AB, she is not claiming immunity from past determining factors.

[bluehillside Retd.]

ekim,

I think Gabriella is explaining the 'how' as it appears to her.  Prayer is her process of summoning up the will power to overcome the previous inertial against volunteering.  To do so she has first to be conscious of that negative 'will' (or 'won't' as we like to call it) and prayer empowers her to choose differently.  Unlike AB, she is not claiming immunity from past determining factors.

But she is claiming (or perhaps positing a model) in which a "soul" "decides" on something. It's the same problem therefore - how would it do that if not deterministically or randomly?   

[Alan Burns]

I edited my previous response but you might not have seen it. I wrote:

ETA: All the stuff I read about Islam alters my perceptions - those are past events - so for example what I haven't learned yet logically can't influence my current choice. That's all that "determined by past events" means. Are you arguing something different when you say our choices are determined by past events?

I’ll give you a scenario of how the “will of my soul” might work - I think its will is determined by my perceptions of what I have read, learned, experienced, in so much as those are the only inputs my soul can use to decide what course of action to take. So for example I really felt like I couldn’t be bothered to volunteer to do something that I knew would be helpful to others - I hoped someone else would volunteer instead. My soul decided I should pray - it could only decide that if in the past I had learned about prayer. Once I had prayed I was able to motivate myself to volunteer as being the right thing to do. That could be my soul invoking my will power but it was still based on my perception of a prior event - the prayer. What scenario are you proposing that doesn’t rely on a prior event?

I agree,
I have never denied the influence or importance of past events in enabling us to make an informed choice.  The contention I have with other posters such as Blue, Torri and Stranger is in the role of our conscious awareness being aware of influencing factors, but still having the freedom to consciously invoke the chosen option at a chosen time and place, or perhaps to choose not to do anything.  This is the driving force of our consciously controlled human will which I believe is directed by our spiritual nature rather than from the physically predetermined reactions of our brain cells.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I agree,
I have never denied the influence or importance of past events in enabling us to make an informed choice.  The contention I have with other posters such as Blue, Torri and Stranger is in the role of our conscious awareness being aware of influencing factors, but still having the freedom to consciously invoke the chosen option at a chosen time and place, or perhaps to choose not to do anything.  This is the driving force of our consciously controlled human will which I believe is directed by our spiritual nature rather than from the physically predetermined reactions of our brain cells.

So having relocated the same "determined vs random" problem to a supposed "soul" you're persisting with "it's magic innit?" to resolve it then.

How do you think this helps you?

[Stranger]

This is the driving force of our consciously controlled human will which I believe is directed by our spiritual nature rather than from the physically predetermined reactions of our brain cells.

Once again you are changing the question of how choices get made to what makes the choices.

Are you seriously unable to see the difference?

Does your "spiritual nature" make its choices entirely due to pre-existing reasons or is part of the process not for pre-existing reasons (random)? There is no third option - making it "spiritual" makes bugger all difference to the logic. "Entirely due to pre-existing reasons" is a Boolean, it can only be true or false, and if it's false, that means that there is a random element.

[bluehillside Retd.]

L'etranger,

Once again you are changing the question of how choices get made to what makes the choices.

Are you seriously unable to see the difference?

Yes it's odd isn't it - someone who's had a (presumably not peer reviewed) article published under the banner "philosophy" seems entirely unable to grasp the difference between a "how" question and a "what" question.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Gabriella,

You’ve just jumped into the same hole that AB has dug for himself. That doesn’t tell anyone “how “the will of my soul” might work” at all – it just tells them what it would do ("decides"). When you say that “my soul decided”, how did it do that deciding – deterministically or randomly?

Your and AB’s concept has the same flaw – essentially you see “soul” as akin to a man in a restaurant choosing his dinner: “OK the menu is all written down, but then the man makes his selection from the available dishes” type of thing. The huge problem with this is that it just relocates the same problem to the man – what process does he use to do his choosing? AB’s response is a mix of silence and "I haven’t got the details worked out yet" – essentially, “it’s magic innit?”.

Do you have anything more credible to suggest?

I don't consider my soul as doing the choosing - I don't know the process of how I am self-aware and can perceive my perceptions and analyse them - the brain processes involved in that process of perception of perceptions have not been identified and I don't know what the brain interacts with to produce those types of thoughts and how it reasons from those thoughts to moral actions.

I was looking at it from AB's perspective of sticking a soul into the process and asking him to explain where he thought the soul fitted into a particular scenario.

As for deterministically v randomly, read my post - the answer is in there.

ETA: Alan's response to my question about how the soul fits in, if I have understood it correctly, seems to be that he also does not know how this perception of perceptions is done but his belief based on his religious inclinations is that he is going to attribute the ability to perceive perceptions and make choices and decisions, many of which will be moral,to the soul. I am assuming this is because he believes we have souls so I can see how it would makes sense to him to give it something important to do.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Gabriella,

I don't consider my soul as doing the choosing –

Does that mean that you’ve changed your mind then about positing “in so much as those are the only inputs my soul can use to decide what course of action to take”? Would it decide or wouldn’t it? 

I don't know the process of how I am self-aware and can perceive my perceptions and analyse them - the brain processes involved in that process of perception of perceptions have not been identified and I don't know what the brain interacts with to produce those types of thoughts and how it reasons from those thoughts to moral actions.

Whether they’ve “not been identified” is moot, but fair enough – you’re describing the “you can’t cut butter with a knife made of butter” problem I think.   

I was looking at it from AB's perspective of sticking a soul into the process and asking him to explain where he thought the soul fitted into a particular scenario.

But you started by saying you had a suggestion for how it would work and then told us only what it would do. Where’s the “how”?

As for deterministically v randomly, read my post - the answer is in there.

Where?

ETA: Alan's response to my question about how the soul fits in, if I have understood it correctly, seems to be that he also does not know how this perception of perceptions is done but his belief based on his religious inclinations is that he is going to attribute the ability to perceive perceptions and make choices and decisions, many of which will be moral,to the soul. I am assuming this is because he believes we have souls so I can see how it would makes sense to him to give it something important to do.

No – that’s the problem. If he just said something like, “look, I have no logic and no evidence to support my claims and assertions of fact but I believe them to be true nonetheless just as articles of personal faith” that would be fine. It would come at a big price because he’d then have to give up any expectation of anyone agreeing with him (any more than he’d agree with their various and sundry beliefs from personal faith) but so far as it goes it would be no-one’s business but his own. What he actually does though is to overreach – he tries to make arguments in logic for his claims so as to persuade others of their validity, but whenever he does it those arguments unravel immediately like a cheap suit. What he then does in the face of their falsification is either to ignore the falsifications or to repeat the falsified mantras. Or both.       

[ekim]

ekim,

But she is claiming (or perhaps positing a model) in which a "soul" "decides" on something. It's the same problem therefore - how would it do that if not deterministically or randomly?

I took this part of her post to mean that Gabriella accepted the determining factors in her consequent action.... "That could be my soul invoking my will power but it was still based on my perception of a prior event - the prayer. What scenario are you proposing that doesn't’ rely on a prior event?".  I would also suggest that those who believe in the Will of Allah or God might claim that there is no such thing as 'random' as all is determined by God and it's just that the self centred human mind has not discovered the source of that determination, hence the subject title of this particular topic.

[Alan Burns]

This is the irony:
I am constantly being accused of deliberate actions such as evasion, dishonesty, assertions, ignoring, ... etc. Yet these same accusers tell me that my apparently conscious choices are entirely predetermined by past events.  So I ask them,  Who or what is ultimately responsible for the deliberation involved in such actions?  Could it be that my accusers are the ultimate cause?  But then we ask what causes the accusers to make these accusation?  And so it goes on, and on, just illustrating the nonsense that in not acknowledging the truth in our freedom to consciously invoke our own choices, there can be no source of deliberation.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

So having relocated the same "determined vs random" problem to a supposed "soul" you're persisting with "it's magic innit?" to resolve it then.

How do you think this helps you?

It is you who insists on quoting "determined vs random" problem .  I have never denied that our choices are determined.  My contention is that they are not physically predetermined, because if they were, there is no choice.

[Alan Burns]

"Entirely due to pre-existing reasons" is a Boolean, it can only be true or false, and if it's false, that means that there is a random element.

wrong.
Just remove the "pre-" and you get the third option.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

This is the irony:
I am constantly being accused of deliberate actions such as evasion, dishonesty, assertions, ignoring, ... etc. Yet these same accusers tell me that my apparently conscious choices are entirely predetermined by past events.  So I ask them,  Who or what is ultimately responsible for the deliberation involved in such actions?  Could it be that my accusers are the ultimate cause?  But then we ask what causes the accusers to make these accusation?  And so it goes on, and on, just illustrating the nonsense that in not acknowledging the truth in our freedom to consciously invoke our own choices, there can be no source of deliberation.

That’s not an irony at all for the reason that keeps being explained to you and you keep ignoring remember? At one level we have “free” will and so we treat each other accordingly – in social interactions, in the courts etc. This perception of freedom is a useful construction that allows us to function in the world.

What it doesn’t do though it tell us anything at all about other types of freedom that sit underneath the apparent one. And that’s your problem: you refuse point blank to do the thinking that would tell you that in fact the freedom you assert is logically impossible – if it isn’t determined then it would have to be random, which would make it chaotic.

Why is this so hard for you to grasp?

It is you who insists on quoting "determined vs random" problem .

Yes, because like it or not that’s the same problem a “soul” would have even though you keep ignoring it.

I have never denied that our choices are determined.

Yes you have. You think there’s something called a “soul” and you think in some entirely unexplained way that it floats free of the basic logic that would require it to act either deterministically or randomly. That’s your problem.

My contention is that they are not physically predetermined,…

But as you well know because it’s been explained to you countless times adding “physically” doesn’t change alter the logic that undoes you. If you want to conjure up a non-physical "soul" in the hope that it’ll get you off that hook it’d still face the same options in logic – determined or random. Your option though – essentially “it’s magic” – is hopelss special pleading.
 

…because if they were, there is no choice.

And there you repeat (yet again) one of your favourite fallacies – the non sequitur. Of course there’d be choice at the relatively superficial level you experience it, but even if there wouldn’t be that tells you nothing about the underlying reality.
 

Just remove the "pre-" and you get the third option.

Only if you think “it’s magic innit?” is a third option. Do you?

[Stranger]

"Entirely due to pre-existing reasons" is a Boolean, it can only be true or false, and if it's false, that means that there is a random element.

wrong.
Just remove the "pre-" and you get the third option.

Oh, don't be so stupid! If a reason doesn't exist prior at the start of a choice (or some stage of the choice), in other words, is "pre-existing" (with respect to the choice), then it can't be an input to the choice.

And no, for what seems like the ten thousandth time, you can't conjure up a reason at the moment of choice because that reason itself has to be entirely because of previous reasons or not, too.

Why do you keep on totally ignoring the answers you've already been given? I understand that you disagree but you never come back with, something like "no, that isn't right because..." and then address what's been said, you just endlessly repeat the old script over and over and over again, for all the world as if you had no ability to think or make conscious choices...