Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Can I just ask you...

You can ask anything you like, and as always I will try to answer you. Be nice if you'd extend the same courtesy to me though.

...how you came to think up your analogy which compares belief in God to belief in Leprechauns - do you believe it was all done subconsciously before you became aware of it?  Or do you take the credit for deliberately thinking it up?  Or was it an inevitable consequence to past events and your perception of it is "just the way it seems"?

You still fundamental fail to grasp the argument that undoes you. The "you"/"I" that I perceive for workaday, functional purposes and that means the DVLA can get snarky with me if I forget to tax my car thought it up. That sense of agency is functionally useful because it enables me to navigate the world. It's also though worthless for explanatory purposes because more considered thinking tells me that it's logically impossible. This same disconnect between the lived experience and more considered investigation happens all the time - our sense that we actually touch things being just one example among many.

You know this already though because it's been explained to you countless times, only you're determined to ignore the explanation - presumably because you're terrified of the consequences if you risked finding out that you're decades in to an investment in beliefs that are false.

[SusanDoris]

Because our subconsciouses are part of us too.

The subject of free will is a subject on Gh forum. One poster, a scientist with a faith belief,  says that scientists who study these things do not use the word subconscious, as the correct term apparently is preattentive (and no hyphen I'm surprised to see). .  Well, that might be true for a particular aspect or discipline, but I don't think many people have a problem with subconscious.
I did a quick google and the first link that came up was this article
Seems to be a very rational article, but said poster wasn't too keen!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I'm not sure if that is his claim, I can't be bothered to look back through the thread, but, it is quite possibly true. There is experimental evidence that our consciousness is our brain backfilling a narrative after the fact.

Why would that be biologically advantageous rather than superfluous?

[Alan Burns]

You still fundamental fail to grasp the argument that undoes you. The "you"/"I" that I perceive for workaday, functional purposes and that means the DVLA can get snarky with me if I forget to tax my car thought it up. That sense of agency is functionally useful because it enables me to navigate the world. It's also though worthless for explanatory purposes because more considered thinking tells me that it's logically impossible. This same disconnect between the lived experience and more considered investigation happens all the time - our sense that we actually touch things being just one example among many.

So this explanation that undoes me does so by effectively claiming the existence of you or I to be a logical impossibility.  You appear to be thinking yourself out of existence and being replaced with what you deem to be "a sense of agency".  But I know I exist.  This is me typing these words.

Also the touching of the keyboard is totally irrelevant, because the point is that you make a conscious choice to press a key, and the resulting consequence is that the key gets depressed.  The mechanics of how it actually happens is irrelevant and the point you are trying to make is trivial.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You still fundamental fail to grasp the argument that undoes you. The "you"/"I" that I perceive for workaday, functional purposes and that means the DVLA can get snarky with me if I forget to tax my car thought it up

If it is an illusion, what is being illuded?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

So this explanation that undoes me does so by effectively claiming the existence of you or I to be a logical impossibility.

No it doesn’t. It just explains that your concept of “freedom” (neither deterministic nor random) is a logical impossibility.

You appear to be thinking yourself out of existence and being replaced with what you deem to be "a sense of agency".

No, "I" still exist but I also know that as an explanatory model my workaday sense of agency fails. That’s all.

But I know I exist.  This is me typing these words.

Yes I know, so do I. What “I” consists of though cannot be your romanticised notion of an indivisible whole – rather it’s a complex biosphere of microbial communities. Here’s a link to get you started:

https://www.astrobio.net/biosphere/the-rare-biosphere-of-the-human-body/

Also the touching of the keyboard is totally irrelevant, because the point is that you make a conscious choice to press a key, and the resulting consequence is that the key gets depressed.  The mechanics of how it actually happens is irrelevant and the point you are trying to make is trivial.

No, it’s totally relevant. The problem here is that you don’t grasp the meaning of the term “analogy”. An analogy is a comparison between different things for the purpose of making a point. The point here is that the analogy illustrates that your experience of phenomena cannot be assumed to provide therefore the explanation for those phenomena. Whether the phenomenon at issue is decision-making or how we pick things up makes no difference to the basic point. This has been explained to you many times already so I don't know why you keep ignoring it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Just out if interest by the way, do you also go by the name Storm?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIWj3tI-DXg

[torridon]

Why would that be biologically advantageous rather than superfluous?

The forming of a coherent internal broadcast narrative is central to our sense of self, of personhood. We are laying down a memory of what  is happening to us; moreover, we are a highly social species, so our internal broadcast in turn becomes an external broadcast - even if we aren't speaking to someone we are still communicating our internal state through body language, facial expressions etc. - all outward manifestations of our internal state.

[Alan Burns]

No it doesn’t. It just explains that your concept of “freedom” (neither deterministic nor random) is a logical impossibility.

Please stop misquoting me on this.
I have never claimed that our conscious freedom to choose is not deterministic.  My contention is in what determines our choice - the will of our human soul, or the inevitable consequences of predetermined physical reactions in an entirely material brain

[jeremyp]

So did your subconscious just replied to me?

I replied to you. I was certainly conscious of my reply but whether that was an after the fact narrative or not, I do not know.

[jeremyp]

Why would that be biologically advantageous rather than superfluous?

No idea. It could be that it is a spider effect of the ability to introspective our own behavior which probably is evolutionarily advantageous.

[jeremyp]

Please stop misquoting me on this.
I have never claimed that our conscious freedom to choose is not deterministic.

There’s the ballgame. Either that or you do not understand what determinism is.

Basically, if, given the exact same set of circumstances over again, if you always make the same choice then your behavior is deterministic. This is why the rewinding analogy works. If the exact same circumstances apply, why would you not make the same choice each time? The thought processes you use the first time would be exactly the same the second and subsequent times no matter what you define “I” to be. The only way to avoid it is to introduce a random element, and that’s a bust for free will too.

[Gordon]

Please stop misquoting me on this.
I have never claimed that our conscious freedom to choose is not deterministic.  My contention is in what determines our choice - the will of our human soul, or the inevitable consequences of predetermined physical reactions in an entirely material brain

Yes but you've also told us you think this 'soul' exists in a dimension other than our material one and that it somehow interacts with what our brains do in real time: so you need to explain how this all works if you are to be taken seriously regarding 'souls'.

Since you seem so certain on this 'soul' front, explaining the details should be a doddle!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The forming of a coherent internal broadcast narrative is central to our sense of self, of personhood.

That suggests something that has a lot of information is broadcasting to something which understands it. What then is that thing? Further to that we can have understanding without consciousness can we not?

If it is a matter of processing and transmission of information, where does consciousness of it come in?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Why would that be biologically advantageous rather than superfluous?

No idea. It could be that it is a spider effect of the ability to introspective our own behavior which probably is evolutionarily advantageous.

But you said consciousness comes after action. So what good is it?

[wigginhall]

Please stop misquoting me on this.
I have never claimed that our conscious freedom to choose is not deterministic.  My contention is in what determines our choice - the will of our human soul, or the inevitable consequences of predetermined physical reactions in an entirely material brain

Yes, and the will of the human soul is supernatural, is it not?  So you are talking about supernatural determinism, I think.  This is exciting, please indicate further details.  I would think that scholarly journals will be desperate for first publication rights.

[Stranger]

Please stop misquoting me on this.
I have never claimed that our conscious freedom to choose is not deterministic.  My contention is in what determines our choice - the will of our human soul, or the inevitable consequences of predetermined physical reactions in an entirely material brain

Oh FFS, not again!

It's not a question of misquoting you, it is that you are either lying (for some bizarre reason), trying deliberately to muddy the waters, or you don't understand what deterministic means. It does not just mean that something is determined by something else.

People here are using it in the sense of our minds being deterministic systems - "...a deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system. A deterministic model will thus always produce the same output from a given starting condition or initial state."

Alternatively:

deterministic - "Relating to the philosophical doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes regarded as external to the will."

Wiki redirects deterministic to Determinism - "Determinism is the philosophical theory that all events, including moral choices, are determined completely by previously existing causes."

So, determined by some self-contradictory magic thingy that manages to choose without involving any randomness and without being entirely due to what went before, is not deterministic.

[Alan Burns]

There’s the ballgame. Either that or you do not understand what determinism is.

Basically, if, given the exact same set of circumstances over again, if you always make the same choice then your behavior is deterministic. This is why the rewinding analogy works. If the exact same circumstances apply, why would you not make the same choice each time? The thought processes you use the first time would be exactly the same the second and subsequent times no matter what you define “I” to be. The only way to avoid it is to introduce a random element, and that’s a bust for free will too.

Sorry but you are stuck in looking at human will as if it were just another cog in the mechanistic material world.  Human will coupled with our conscious awareness always exists and acts in the present - it is influenced by the past, but not entirely determined by it.  Human will is a source of determinism, not a result of it.

[Alan Burns]

Oh FFS, not again!

It's not a question of misquoting you, it is that you are either lying (for some bizarre reason), trying deliberately to muddy the waters, or you don't understand what deterministic means. It does not just mean that something is determined by something else.

People here are using it in the sense of our minds being deterministic systems - "...a deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system. A deterministic model will thus always produce the same output from a given starting condition or initial state."

Alternatively:

deterministic - "Relating to the philosophical doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes regarded as external to the will."

Wiki redirects deterministic to Determinism - "Determinism is the philosophical theory that all events, including moral choices, are determined completely by previously existing causes."

So, determined by some self-contradictory magic thingy that manages to choose without involving any randomness and without being entirely due to what went before, is not deterministic.

But my human will is obviously self determined.  It is the ultimate source which determines my thoughts, words and actions.  My human will is God's spiritual gift which is beyond our human understanding, given in order to enable me to choose my own destiny.  I make no apology in repeating the fact that am not a machine.

[SusanDoris]

But my human will is obviously self determined.  It is the ultimate source which determines my thoughts, words and actions.  My human will is God's spiritual gift which is beyond our human understanding, given in order to enable me to choose my own destiny.  I make no apology in repeating the fact that am not a machine.

Well, in my opinion, you certainly ought to be apologising - for ignoring so many of the excellent posts here containing well-thought-out  explanations, many with questions attached which you evade, written in clear English with no excuse for misunderstanding; for your total lack of evidence, theories and methods of justifying your bizarre, supernatural beliefs; for your continuous misrepresentation of what others say; for fallacies, repeated over and over; for the, what I see as, smug attitude towards the writers of  posts which point out the incorrectness of your ideas;;;;;; for the, apparently, random-word-generator  posts which lack any coherent meaning; and for the oft-repeated falsehoods about basic biology.

[jeremyp]

No idea. It could be that it is a spider effect of the ability to introspective our own behavior which probably is evolutionarily advantageous.


But you said consciousness comes after action. So what good is it?

The investigation comes after the air crash, so what good is it?

[jeremyp]

Sorry but you are stuck in looking at human will as if it were just another cog in the mechanistic material world.  Human will coupled with our conscious awareness always exists and acts in the present - it is influenced by the past, but not entirely determined by it.  Human will is a source of determinism, not a result of it.

You keep asserting that but you don’t seem to be able to produce any evidence.

[torridon]

Sorry but you are stuck in looking at human will as if it were just another cog in the mechanistic material world.  Human will coupled with our conscious awareness always exists and acts in the present - it is influenced by the past, but not entirely determined by it.  Human will is a source of determinism, not a result of it.

That's yet again you merely escaping simple logic, hoping a smattering of pejoratives will provide cover.  Fact is, if you rewound time and faced an identical situation with an identical state of mind you would make an identical choice because there is no reason to do otherwise.  If you did choose otherwise that would mean that your different choice was random because there was no reason for it.  Will cannot be its own reason, that is circular nonsense.  Your unfathomably illogical thinking is quite bizarre.

[torridon]

The investigation comes after the air crash, so what good is it?

It is for good reasons that we install a black box flight recorder on all aircraft.  You seem to be disputing the utility of memory.

[torridon]

But my human will is obviously self determined.  It is the ultimate source which determines my thoughts, words and actions.  My human will is God's spiritual gift which is beyond our human understanding, given in order to enable me to choose my own destiny.  I make no apology in repeating the fact that am not a machine.

Better to be a machine that operates on sound logical principals than something with no rhyme or reason.  If humans operated as you seem to think we would have long gone extinct.  We are still here, and we are here, because we make choices for reasons.  Get over it.