Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

I fully agree that there are reasons
Consciously determined reasons
Not physically predetermined reasons
Can you not tell the difference?
One of them is controlled, the other is uncontrollable.

This has all been explained multiple times, Alan. Why won't you even acknowledge it? Why the mindless, inane repetition as if nobody has ever answered you and pointed out the problems? If you think what you've been told is wrong, why don't you argue against it?

YET AGAIN: Physical makes no difference at all. Either you make choices because of pre-existing reasons (physical, spiritual, magical, or whatever else) or not. If not, there must be randomness involved.

[torridon]

No I am not - Vlad is.

I said consciousness might be an after the event thing. He said what evolutionary value is that. I said being able to introspect past decisions might have some evolutionary value. He said  what evolutionary value is that. I replied with an analogy about why it is good to be able to look back on things that have already happened and analyse why.

Oops careless of me

[SusanDoris]

Dear Susan,

I am going to start by picking you up on this. If you addressed all posters as 'Dear ....' as Gonnagle does, I would not even notice this, but you don’t, so there is a touch of condescension here which I neither expect nor want. We are equal posters … although I do think that perhaps I think a little more clearly than you do!!

Your posts offer a great example of the human freedom to consciously cherry pick the theories which support what you want to believe, while ignoring, dismissing or ridiculing any arguments put forward which may contradict what you want to believe.

Un evidenced waffle. And, as always, a complete lack of actual argument.

You may well accuse me of doing the same - but at least I can acknowledge that I have the God given freedom to consciously choose to do so.

There are probably several fallacies here, but I’ll concentrate on the God word here. since you have never, ever, at any time, anywhere in R&E, given any facts about this God, no method of demonstrating its existence or presence, let alone any objective evidence ab out any God/god/spirit/soul/supernatural-anything/ etc, then I’ll carry on totally lacking belief in any god at all.
for some reason voice won't read previews, so I'll post this and hope no edits are necessary.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB,

Consciousness is "physical", so no.

So you do not hold with The illusion of self idea?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB,

Consciousness is "physical", so no.

So it will be possible to extract consciousness given a suitable medium.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB,

Consciousness is "physical", so no.

SI units?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB,

Consciousness is "physical", so no.

We know that because.....everything is physical?

I'm a bit dualist myself. There is substance and then there is turdpolish.........turd being a type of substance.......a bit like anti matter.

[Alan Burns]

This has all been explained multiple times, Alan. Why won't you even acknowledge it? Why the mindless, inane repetition as if nobody has ever answered you and pointed out the problems? If you think what you've been told is wrong, why don't you argue against it?

YET AGAIN: Physical makes no difference at all. Either you make choices because of pre-existing reasons (physical, spiritual, magical, or whatever else) or not. If not, there must be randomness involved.

I must confess that I do not understand how you can see no difference between the spiritual self and the material self

[Gordon]

I must confess that I do not understand how you can see no difference between the spiritual self and the spiritual self

I suspect a typo, Alan (he said, helpfully).

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I must confess that I do not understand how you can see no difference between the spiritual self and the spiritual self

Well, calling them the same thing doesn't help much for starters.

[jeremyp]

I must confess that I do not understand how you can see no difference between the spiritual self and the spiritual self

I often have problems distinguishing between X and X - no matter what X is.

I assume that one of those "spiritual"s is meant to be "physical". Even so, I see no evidence that they are not the same thing.

[jeremyp]

So it will be possible to extract consciousness given a suitable medium.

Is Microsoft Windows physical? Is it possible to "extract it" given a suitable medium?

I'd argue the answer to both those questions are yes and there is no  reason to  suspect that consciousness is any different.

[Alan Burns]

Either you make choices because of pre-existing reasons (physical, spiritual, magical, or whatever else) or not. If not, there must be randomness involved.

But reasons are formed in your conscious awareness.  How can you possibly say they pre exist?  Outside our conscious awareness all there is are physically predetermined reactions to past events, but a reaction cannot be equated to a consciously perceived reason.

[torridon]

But reasons are formed in your conscious awareness.  How can you possibly say they pre exist?  Outside our conscious awareness all there is are physically predetermined reactions to past events, but a reaction cannot be equated to a consciously perceived reason.

The relevant circumstances have to exist before you can become aware of them.  Moreover, many of the inputs to a decision do not factor in conscious awareness at all.  If a vegan is in a restaurant looking at the menu he is probably not going to start thinking about whether he is a vegan or not to decide whether or not to scan the meat options.  He just knows he is vegan and ignores the meat, however the fact that he is vegan is still a (non conscious) contributory factor in the resulting choice made.

Notwithstanding that, the conscious thoughts we have are triggered by prior circumstances, they aren't random, they derive from origins.  If I see something on the menu that I used to like and haven't had for years, that might trigger a cascade of pleasant memories, the emotional content of which might outweigh the emotional responses I get to the other options on the menu.

As always, it comes back to the same simple issue, we do not choose what emotional responses to have to events; the choices we make reflect our mental and emotional state at the moment of making a choice, but we do not choose what mental state to have.

[Stranger]

But reasons are formed in your conscious awareness.  How can you possibly say they pre exist?

How many times has this been explained to you? How many times have you totally ignored it and just posted the same thing again? How about actually reading the answer and responding to it this time?

If you form a reason in your conscious mind, while thinking about something, then that reason is either entirely because of previous reasons (internal to the mind; mood, character, experience, etc., or external to it) or, if not, it must to some extent be for no reason, and hence random.

Locating an event (choice, reason creation, or anything) in the "conscious awareness" and out of the physical world, cannot free it from the simple logic that it either happens entirely because of its antecedents or not.

The purpose of the thought experiment of rewinding time is to clarify this. If you were faced with exactly the same situation while in exactly the same state of mind/soul, would you, or could you, make a different choice?

Outside our conscious awareness all there is are physically predetermined reactions to past events, but a reaction cannot be equated to a consciously perceived reason.

He asserted, without any basis.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Is Microsoft Windows physical? Is it possible to "extract it" given a suitable medium?

I'd argue the answer to both those questions are yes and there is no  reason to  suspect that consciousness is any different.

Well argue it then since merely saying ''Consciousness is physical because everything is'' constitutes a philosophy rather than something which is scientifically demonstrated. In other words unless we are presented with consciousness as physical we are not bound to accept it.

 
As I have said before I am happy for consciousness, at the end of the day, to be physical but I am with Searle in my expectations for it to be explained totally adequately in physical terms without resort to physicalism and not explained away as a type of intelligence.


In terms of denying what you claim about the evolutionary advantage of the consciousness, I don't. You are suggesting that the consciousness informs survival...and yet the argument on here has largely been that the consciousness is merely informed by the unconscious part of the brain, which does everything......,and that's it.


If you accept that consciousness informs the rest of the brain which then acts on the ruminations of consciousness then since the nature and workings of consciousness have not been established then frankly, all you are arguing is,er, physicalism.


Chalmers has pointed out that the hard problem of consciousness will not be elucidated by physicalism because science considers it's nature subjective and does not touch it.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Is Microsoft Windows physical? Is it possible to "extract it" given a suitable medium?

That is artificial intelligence though not artificial consciousness.

[Alan Burns]

How many times has this been explained to you? How many times have you totally ignored it and just posted the same thing again? How about actually reading the answer and responding to it this time?

If you form a reason in your conscious mind, while thinking about something, then that reason is either entirely because of previous reasons (internal to the mind; mood, character, experience, etc., or external to it) or, if not, it must to some extent be for no reason, and hence random.

Locating an event (choice, reason creation, or anything) in the "conscious awareness" and out of the physical world, cannot free it from the simple logic that it either happens entirely because of its antecedents or not.

The purpose of the thought experiment of rewinding time is to clarify this. If you were faced with exactly the same situation while in exactly the same state of mind/soul, would you, or could you, make a different choice?

He asserted, without any basis.

But the reasons which form in our conscious awareness do not dictate our conscious choices.  Our choices are ultimately invoked by our conscious will, not by consciously perceived reasons.  You seem to be treating our conscious awareness as just a predetermined entity over which we have no control, but you can't make this presumption until you can define what conscious awareness is.

[Stranger]

But the reasons which form in our conscious awareness do not dictate our conscious choices.  Our choices are ultimately invoked by our conscious will, not by consciously perceived reasons.  You seem to be treating our conscious awareness as just a predetermined entity over which we have no control...

Nothing can be in control unless it can make choices and it's the choice making process that you keep ignoring - it's like the question is invisible to you. It really is as if you can't understand the subject matter of the discussion. You keep going on about what makes the choice rather than how the choice is made.

There must be some decision making process that operates within "conscious will" and that process must either produce choices that are entirely due to the antecedents or not, and if not, to that extent they must be due to nothing (random).

...but you can't make this presumption until you can define what conscious awareness is.

Jaw-dropping double standards again. All we are assuming here is that "conscious awareness" is logically self-consistent.

[Enki]

SI units?

How about the Glasgow coma scale?

https://www.nursingtimes.net/using-a-coma-scale-to-assess-patient-consciousness-levels/203819.article

[Walt Zingmatilder]

How about the Glasgow coma scale?

https://www.nursingtimes.net/using-a-coma-scale-to-assess-patient-consciousness-levels/203819.article

How is this any different from a diagnostic  of a malfunctioning computer.

[jeremyp]

But reasons are formed in your conscious awareness. 

How do they form: they form in response to external information.

[jeremyp]

That is artificial intelligence though not artificial consciousness.

It's neither. It's a computer operating system.

But I think you'd argue it is part of our physical world rather than some hypothetical spiritual realm even though it is not made of atoms as such and there is no stuff to extract. Same applies to human consciousness. Different program, different hardware but same thing.

[jeremyp]

Well argue it then since merely saying ''Consciousness is physical because everything is'' constitutes a philosophy rather than something which is scientifically demonstrated. In other words unless we are presented with consciousness as physical we are not bound to accept it.

I am not arguing one way or the other in this instance, I am refuting your objection to somebody else's assertion that it is physical.

As I have said before I am happy for consciousness, at the end of the day, to be physical but I am with Searle in my expectations for it to be explained totally adequately in physical terms without resort to physicalism and not explained away as a type of intelligence.

The Chinese Room thought experiment is relatively easy to demolish.

In terms of denying what you claim about the evolutionary advantage of the consciousness, I don't. You are suggesting that the consciousness informs survival...and yet the argument on here has largely been that the consciousness is merely informed by the unconscious part of the brain, which does everything......,and that's it.

I was actually just arguing against your assertions about consciousness. You claim that consciousness couldn't evolved because what use has it got. I refute your claim by pointing out that it possibly does have a use, and in any case, things can evolve that have do have no use as side effects of other evolutionary traits.

For example, learning from experience can be very useful in evolutionary terms. Maybe consciousness is the inevitable result of dialling learning ability up to the max.

Chalmers has pointed out...

I think you'd do better to think for yourself rather than parrot words from others that you don't really understand.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I am not arguing one way or the other in this instance, I am refuting your objection to somebody else's assertion that it is physical.
The Chinese Room thought experiment is relatively easy to demolish.
I was actually just arguing against your assertions about consciousness. You claim that consciousness couldn't evolved because what use has it got. I refute your claim by pointing out that it possibly does have a use, and in any case, things can evolve that have do have no use as side effects of other evolutionary traits.

For example, learning from experience can be very useful in evolutionary terms. Maybe consciousness is the inevitable result of dialling learning ability up to the max.
I think you'd do better to think for yourself rather than parrot words from others that you don't really understand.

Demolish the chinese room experiment.

The only circumstances under which consciousness could not have evolved is if it serves no survival purpose.

Sorry, I have never claimed it has no survival value.