Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

torri,

Think it through.

I admire your optimism.

[Enki]

Your interpretation would apply just as well to a rock rolling down a hill.

Whether that is true or not or a deliberate distortion(e.g. Does the definition of freedom apply to non living things?) is beside the point. Please answer the question. What is self contradictory here and why?

[Stranger]

Yet again, you've totally ignored the logic. How does the "conscious will" define what it wants, unless it has a want to want something? Then how does that get decided? By a want to want to want something....?

It is all done within what constitutes our conscious awareness.  Within our awareness, we have the freedom to peruse, to consider options, to think and to decide before invoking a choice. 

Yes, I know, now how about an actual answer to the question I raised?

[Gordon]

This is what the human soul does

How?

You've told us it exists in another dimension so what mechanism allows it to influence our biology in this one? I've asked you this before but you've yet to bother to clarify the matter.

If this 'human soul' influences the likes of what we type when we post: an example you've often employed, then I think yours needs some attention, since it is allowing you to type utter nonsense.

[torridon]

This is what the human soul does - it resolves a dilemma by considering options before invoking a consciously made choice.  Something  which a physically controlled brain would be incapable of because it has no freedom to consciously peruse the options before consciously invoking the choice.

Most creatures consider options before making a complex choice.  A rabbit will consider many potential scrapes before settling on a location for a new burrow. A peahen may eye up several peacocks over a period of time before deciding which one to mate with.  How do they manage this without a supernatural soul ?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

So you assert. Your Achilles heel though remains that you just disappear every time you're asked HOW it would do that - ie, deterministically or randomly.

Yet again, HOW  would it do that if not deterministically or randomly?

A pieces of idiocy you'd had had detonated countless times now, even though you keep pretending otherwise. Why do you behave so dishonestly?

I could ask you how you chose to write the word "how" in bold capitals.
It certainly was not random.
But at some moment there was a consciously made decision to write it in bold.
Was this decision absolutely predetermined by every event which has occurred since the beginning of time?
If not, what was the determining factor?  And what determined that factor?

[Stranger]

I could ask you how you chose to write the word "how" in bold capitals.
It certainly was not random.
But at some moment there was a consciously made decision to write it in bold.
Was this decision absolutely predetermined by every event which has occurred since the beginning of time?
If not, what was the determining factor?  And what determined that factor?

Back to the dishonest evasion...

This has all been covered countless times before, Alan.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I could ask you how you chose to write the word "how" in bold capitals.

You could, and you'd get the same answer you always get and that you just ignore. That though would be just another evasion by you of the question you were asked about this supposed "soul" of yours. Is "it's magic" really all you have?

Really though?

It certainly was not random.

No-one suggested that it was.

But at some moment there was a consciously made decision to write it in bold.

Yes, as a functionally useful model that's true - though that says nothing at all about the explanatory model that underpins it.

Was this decision absolutely predetermined by every event which has occurred since the beginning of time?

At least until you get down to the quantum field level, probably yes.

If not, what was the determining factor?  And what determined that factor?

See above. So about the question you were asked and yet again you've just avoided...HOW would this "soul" of yous function if not deterministically or randomly?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

You could, and you'd get the same answer you always get and that you just ignore. That though would be just another evasion by you of the question you were asked about this supposed "soul" of yours. Is "it's magic" really all you have?

Really though?

No-one suggested that it was.

Yes, as a functionally useful model that's true - though that says nothing at all about the explanatory model that underpins it.

At least until you get down to the quantum field level, probably yes.

See above. So about the question you were asked and yet again you've just avoided...HOW would this "soul" of yous function if not deterministically or randomly?

The soul would be self determined.  That was how God made it.

[Alan Burns]

Most creatures consider options before making a complex choice.  A rabbit will consider many potential scrapes before settling on a location for a new burrow. A peahen may eye up several peacocks over a period of time before deciding which one to mate with.  How do they manage this without a supernatural soul ?

The question you need to consider is whether these processes of consideration are automated by instincts, or freely driven from within our conscious awareness.

[Stranger]

The soul would be self determined.

I'm sure that's very nice for it, but it still has to make choices and those choice must still be entirely because of their antecedents or not entirely because of their antecedents.

It still has to want one option more than the others and it cannot have control over that want unless it has a meta-want to want to want something, and so on into an infinite regress.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The question you need to consider is whether these processes of consideration are automated by instincts, or freely driven from within our conscious awareness.

No, the question YOU have to consider but always run away from is HOW this supposed "soul" would function neither deterministically nor randomly.

Are you just not seeing these words or something?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The soul would be self determined.  That was how God made it.

But even if you want to assert this "it's magic" BS still you'd have the same problem for this supposed "self determined" supposed "soul", its self-determination would still have to be either deterministic or random in character.

Which is it?

[torridon]

The question you need to consider is whether these processes of consideration are automated by instincts, or freely driven from within our conscious awareness.

What you need to remember is 1/ no creatures, humans included, make complex decisions without being conscious, and 2/ most higher creatures have brains which learn; for these there is no such thing as behaviours that are simply 'automated by instincts'. All higher animals are way more complex than that.

[SusanDoris]

Was this decision absolutely predetermined by every event which has occurred since the beginning of time?

No, because some of the things that occurred since the beginning of time happened in other evolutionary branches which did not happen to become the path to the human species.
To ask such an inane, silly question is so obviously  completelylacking in common sense,, logic or any kind of clear thinking that it would not be credible, were it not for the evidence that you acgtuallydid.

[jeremyp]

Your interpretation would apply just as well to a rock rolling down a hill.

It would be a very sophisticated rock but substantially true and just because you don't want it to be true doesn't mean it isn't.

[jeremyp]

We are getting close to the 16 bit limit....

[jeremyp]

This could be the last message on this forum ever....

[jeremyp]

Well what do you know. Perhaps it's the unsigned 16 bit limit that matters.

[bluehillside Retd.]

jeremy,

Well what do you know. Perhaps it's the unsigned 16 bit limit that matters.

It's a miracle! (Don't tell old "Crashes and" Burns for gawd's sake...).

[Alan Burns]

AB,

But even if you want to assert this "it's magic" BS still you'd have the same problem for this supposed "self determined" supposed "soul", its self-determination would still have to be either deterministic or random in character.

Which is it?

Basically, the soul makes its own mind up.  I do not know the mechanics of how it interacts with the physical workings of the brain - it may be through quantum events whose cause we can't determine, but there is nothing in science or logic which contradicts the possibility of this interaction.  And the evidence of this interaction abounds in the existence of human creativity, imagination, worship, investigation, theorising, discovery, exploration ........

[Alan Burns]

Well what do you know. Perhaps it's the unsigned 16 bit limit that matters.

So does this imply that we can carry on for another 32768 posts on this thread?

[Stranger]

Basically, the soul makes its own mind up.  I do not know the mechanics of how it interacts with the physical workings of the brain - it may be through quantum events whose cause we can't determine, but there is nothing in science or logic which contradicts the possibility of this interaction.

Whoosh! Seriously Alan, do you think the problem is to do with how this soul of yours interacts with the physical? Have you seriously misunderstood to that extent? The logical problem is all in the first sentence: how does the soul make its mind up?

Either its choice is entirely due to the antecedents or not.

It can only make a choice if it wants one option rather than another. It cannot control that want without having a meta-want to want to want the option, and so on into an infinite regress.

And the evidence of this interaction abounds in the existence of human creativity, imagination, worship, investigation, theorising, discovery, exploration ........

Drivel. You have produced no arguments and no evidence to suggest that any of those things requires magic souls. They are all entirely consistent with a physical, deterministic brain.

[Alan Burns]

how does the soul make its mind up?

By thinking rather than just reacting.
Do you honestly believe that every conscious thought is entirely predetermined by past events?

[Stranger]

how does the soul make its mind up?

By thinking rather than just reacting.

Thinking is reacting, and you're still just ignoring the logic:-

Yet again: either a choice is entirely due to its antecedents or not. You can only make a choice if you want one option rather than another. You cannot control that want without having a meta-want: to want to want the option, and so on into an infinite regress.