Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

The amazing abilities you refer to are presumably those which are controlled by your conscious self, the source of which can't be defined within a physically controlled material scenario.

• This is a just as much of a baseless assertion as it was all the other times you've mindlessly repeated it and ignored all the responses.
  
  
• You have no logically self-consistent alternative, let alone one with even the hint of a trace of a morsel of supporting evidence.

[Alan Burns]

Which is a perfect example of the mindless repetition I was referring to in my last post. This has been explained to you over and over and over again, and by several different people, so, if you have really understood the replies, why just repeat the same old assertions as if nobody had answered them?

I have responded to these replies by pointing out that they do not explain the reality of our conscious freedom to choose our thoughts, words and actions. You can't change reality to fit in with flawed logic.   And I have offered an alternative scenario based upon the conscious awareness and willpower emanating our spiritual soul.  Your rejection of this appears to be based upon denial of our demonstrable spirituality which gives us our freedom.

[Gordon]

I have responded to these replies by pointing out that they do not explain the reality of our conscious freedom to choose our thoughts, words and actions.

So you have: sadly though your personal definitions of key terms, and associated fallacious theobollocks, don't carry the day.

You can't change reality to fit in with flawed logic.

Oh the irony!

And I have offered an alternative scenario based upon the conscious awareness and willpower emanating our spiritual soul.

Which you've yet to demonstrate: and you still haven't explained how it gets from this other dimension, in which you told us it exists, to ours and how it interacts with our biology.

Your rejection of this appears to be based upon denial of our demonstrable spirituality which gives us our freedom.

Nope: it is a reasonable response to palpable theobollocks.

[Stranger]

I have responded to these replies by pointing out that they do not explain the reality of our conscious freedom to choose our thoughts, words and actions.

Seriously? This is one of the baseless, illogical assertions that you have had responses to. That's what I'm saying - your only response is to reassert the same same stuff that has already been addressed.

In this instance YET AGAIN: this is simply not true unless you adopt your own illogical and contradictory version of 'freedom', and if you do that, you are assuming your conclusion and your argument is circular.

So what about that counterargument do you think is wrong?

You can't change reality to fit in with flawed logic.

Then stop doing so by pretending that reality is the same as what you want to believe about it.

And I have offered an alternative scenario based upon the conscious awareness and willpower emanating our spiritual soul.

You have no evidence whatsoever for a soul and your description of what it does is self-contradictory. This is yet another example of you totally ignoring the counterarguments.

A counterargument to your version of freedom is that nothing can happen that isn't entirely due to pre-existing causes or not entirely due to pre-existing causes, and, if not, then it must involve some randomness.

What about that do you think is wrong?

Your rejection of this appears to be based upon denial of our demonstrable spirituality which gives us our freedom.

How is it demonstrable?

It is a barefaced lie to claim that what we experience and what we can do, can only be explained in one way; every single conjecture about consciousness and free will is an attempt to explain them.

What do you think is wrong with that?

Do you not understand that other explanations exist? If not, on what basis do you reject all of them (blind faith aside)?

[torridon]

I have responded to these replies by pointing out that they do not explain the reality of our conscious freedom to choose our thoughts, words and actions. You can't change reality to fit in with flawed logic.   And I have offered an alternative scenario based upon the conscious awareness and willpower emanating our spiritual soul.  Your rejection of this appears to be based upon denial of our demonstrable spirituality which gives us our freedom.

Your offering is illogical though.  It is not possible to resolve a choice between alternatives without a determining factor without being random.  Your freedom from 'physical' determinism would mean random.  Our perception of choice is that we are 'free' to choose, but if our perception is an illogical oxymoron then it must be our perception that needs to be deconstructed and explained.  We feel free because we cannot sense anything obstructing us.  Simple.  All of our perceptions are constructions of mind, none of them reveal raw fundamental reality to us.  You are still thinking at the simplistic level that we can make two apples touch each other therefore particle physics must be flawed. It doesn't work like that.  Our perceptions are not fundamental, they are derivative, emergent phenomena of mind.  Understanding this opens the way to an authentic rationale of our experience that is not inherently illogical.

[jeremyp]

I have responded to these replies by pointing out that they do not explain the reality of our conscious freedom to choose our thoughts, words and actions. You can't change reality to fit in with flawed logic.   And I have offered an alternative scenario based upon the conscious awareness and willpower emanating our spiritual soul.  Your rejection of this appears to be based upon denial of our demonstrable spirituality which gives us our freedom.

but your alternative scenario is is really the same as saying “it’s magic”.

[ekim]

but your alternative scenario is is really the same as saying “it’s magic”.

magic .... The power of apparently influencing events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.

If he does, I would think that this would mean that those events are determined by those forces and are not free.  The Christian God is said to work in mysterious and supernatural ways.  There appears to be no escape from determinism but to a Christian there is a choice between self determined and God determined i.e. 'Thy Will be done' not 'my will be done'.

[Alan Burns]

Who says it can't?

You, along with a great many others, vastly overestimate what can be achieved by natural, unguided material reactions.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You, along with a great many others, vastly overestimate what can be achieved by natural, unguided material reactions.

Presumably you won't ever feel the need to explain WHY you think that remarkable assertion to be true, especially as the evidence suggests strongly that the actual problem is that you vastly underestimate what can be achieved by a material mind. I took the trouble to post for you a link a few posts back that gave you a flavour of how phenomenally complex brains are. As ever, I note that you just ignored it.   

[torridon]

You, along with a great many others, vastly overestimate what can be achieved by natural, unguided material reactions.

That's merely your personal prejudice talking; you have no data to back it up, no science, no logic, just prejudice,  The history of science shows exactly that -  that what initially appeared to be supernatural on account of its apparent inexplicability, turned out in the end to be the emergent product of simpler underlying repetitive processes.  We're still having to make that argument with you right here right now even with 200 years of science under our belt that we all should have learned from by now.

[Gordon]

You, along with a great many others, vastly overestimate what can be achieved by natural, unguided material reactions.

Don't be silly.

[jeremyp]

You, along with a great many others, vastly overestimate what can be achieved by natural, unguided material reactions.

You, along with a great many others, vastly underestimate what can be achieved by natural, unguided material reactions.

Have you got anything better than "it's magic"?

[bluehillside Retd.]

jeremy,

You, along with a great many others, vastly underestimate what can be achieved by natural, unguided material reactions.

Have you got anything better than "it's magic"?

Of course he hasn't. His efforts are so fallacy-ridden that unpicking them is like unravelling a ball of string. He starts with the fallacy of pejorative language - or poisoning the well (calling the unfathomably complex brain a "blob" was a recent example). Then he tries the fallacy of assertion ("you underestimate" etc) with no attempt ever to validate it with an argument or evidence. Then he doubles down on the fallacy of personal incredulity - essentially "I can't imagine how a brain could produce consciousness, therefore a brain cannot produce consciousness". Next we have an old favourite: reification - "nothing can be allowed to falsify the reality that" etc when what he actually means is that nothing can be allowed to falsify his personal reality, no matter how fundamentally irrational that personal reality happens to be. Then of course we have unremitting avoidance - no matter what arguments are put to him, he just ignores them all in order to hide behind his ignorance so as not to risk discovering that his faith beliefs are entirely misplaced.

And so it goes, mistake after mistake after mistake coupled with the deep dishonesty that's essential never to let a reality other than how own intrude on his mindless certainties.

Ah well.           

[Stranger]

You, along with a great many others, vastly overestimate what can be achieved by natural, unguided material reactions.

Yet another baseless assertion.   

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Presumably you won't ever feel the need to explain WHY you think that remarkable assertion to be true, especially as the evidence suggests strongly that the actual problem is that you vastly underestimate what can be achieved by a material mind. I took the trouble to post for you a link a few posts back that gave you a flavour of how phenomenally complex brains are. As ever, I note that you just ignored it.   

Yes, I did read it, and it brought to mind the presumption that all this phenomenal complexity and functionality was brought about by nothing but random unguided mutations without any concept of purpose or need, together with the development of all the other amazing organs of the body.

[Stranger]

Yes, I did read it, and it brought to mind the presumption that all this phenomenal complexity and functionality was brought about by nothing but random unguided mutations without any concept of purpose or need, together with the development of all the other amazing organs of the body.

I'll add 'evolution by natural selection' to the list of things you don't understand...

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Yes, I did read it, and it brought to mind the presumption that all this phenomenal complexity and functionality was brought about by nothing but random unguided mutations without any concept of purpose or need, together with the development of all the other amazing organs of the body.

Wrong yet again. The "presumption" here is your assertion that consciousness arising naturally is impossible. This'll be lost on you (or you'll just ignore it) but one of your many very bad bits of thinking concerns the burden of proof. I know of no barrier to consciousness being an emergent property of brains - you though assert it to be impossible. It's your job therefore to tell us WHY it's impossible - you know, the type of question you always run away from.   

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Wrong yet again. The "presumption" here is your assertion that consciousness arising naturally is impossible. This'll be lost on you (or you'll just ignore it) but one of your many very bad bits of thinking concerns the burden of proof. I know of no barrier to consciousness being an emergent property of brains - you though assert it to be impossible. It's your job therefore to tell us WHY it's impossible - you know, the type of question you always run away from.

The problem is that there is no definition for how conscious awareness works, or what it comprises, so without this definition you can't just presume that it is an emergent property of material reactions.  And the problem with defining conscious awareness is the impossibility of being able to define a single entity of awareness from within many discrete material reactions.  An externally perceived functionality of such reactions is not evidence for internal conscious awareness.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The problem is that there is no definition for how conscious awareness works, or what it comprises, so without this definition you can't just presume that it is an emergent property of material reactions.  And the problem with defining conscious awareness is the impossibility of being able to define a single entity of awareness from within many discrete material reactions.  An externally perceived functionality of such reactions is not evidence for internal conscious awareness.

No, those aren’t the problems at all even if those statements were to be true. The real problem is that you made the positive assertion – that consciousness arising naturally is “impossible”. Telling us that you can’t see how it could have arisen naturally is just a re-stating of the argument from personal incredulity. “It’s impossible” is your claim – the burden of proof therefore is with you to tell us WHY it’s impossible.   

[Alan Burns]

I'll add 'evolution by natural selection' to the list of things you don't understand...

Of course I understand it.  What I also understand is that there is a presumption that every beneficial mutation involved in the process was produced by random events.

I am fully aware of Richard Dawkin's cleverly thought out scenario showing how everything needed for a fully functioning eye can be generated from a series of naturally selected beneficial mutations.  But the key word here is "needed".  Any random mutation will not be aware of the need for a light sensitive surface, or a transparent lens, or a means of focussing, or a means of controlling the amount of light, or the means of transferring each pixel of light to the brain, or the interpretation of different wavelengths to discern colours, or the combining of two different viewpoints to perceive 3D images.  To satisfy these needs from purely random mutations would demand a virtually infinite supply of such mutations for the process to work.  And the brain is a far more complex organ than the eye, because we have not yet fully discovered how this amazing organ works - yet we still presume that every random mutation needed to make it work was available for selection.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Of course I understand it.  What I also understand is that there is a presumption that every beneficial mutation involved in the process was produced by random events.

That’s unintentionally ironic. While mutations occur for practical purposes “randomly”, whether or not they’re beneficial, harmful of neutral depends on the interaction of those mutations with their environment – which isn’t random at all. 

I am fully aware of Richard Dawkin's cleverly thought out scenario…

I’ve corrected you on this already. Why do you use “clever” as if it somehow diminishes the quality of the argument against you?

…showing how everything needed for a fully functioning eye can be generated from a series of naturally selected beneficial mutations.  But the key word here is "needed".  Any random mutation will not be aware of the need for a light sensitive surface, or a transparent lens, or a means of focussing, or a means of controlling the amount of light, or the means of transferring each pixel of light to the brain, or the interpretation of different wavelengths to discern colours, or the combining of two different viewpoints to perceive 3D images.

Have you any grasp of the depth of misunderstanding this nonsense betrays? Anything?

It’s not that there was a top down plan for an eye and it’s a huge co-incidence that there were incremental steps along the way that led to it (several times in fact with different eye structures in different species).

All that had to happen was that, for example, a mutation formed light-sensitive cells that enabled the host to sense night from day, or perhaps the shadow of a predator. Then from among the countless mutations of those cells another one had another beneficial advantage (maybe basic colour sensitivity) and so on until we reach where we are today. Not that you'll bother with it, but here's some basics to get you started:

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

To satisfy these needs from purely random mutations would demand a virtually infinite supply of such mutations for the process to work.

Which there are.

And the brain is a far more complex organ than the eye, because we have not yet fully discovered how this amazing organ works - yet we still presume that every random mutation needed to make it work was available for selection.

We don’t “presume” at all – we follow the evidence.

Stranger was right – you don’t have the first clue about evolution either. 

[wigginhall]

As regards an infinite supply, OK, but mutations operate serially, as blue pointed out.  You don't keep going back to the beginning, like the monkeys on typewriters, which I think is usually interpreted as each key-press being random..

[Stranger]

The problem is that there is no definition for how conscious awareness works, or what it comprises, so without this definition you can't just presume that it is an emergent property of material reactions.

Neither can you presume that it isn't. The point is that all the evidence we have indicates that it is something that physical brains do. The problem with your view is that it is self-contradictory and hence impossible.

I note that you couldn't be bothered to even try to engage with the counterarguments I posted (#32903)...   ho hum...

[SusanDoris]

In 'The Weather Experience' by Peter Moor where I am on the last sixth, I have reached the part where Darwin chose to present his Theory at Oxford and where Wilberforce made his famous remark to Huxley about which side of the family was descended from an ape! The main point is that Fitz-Roy, who was a devout Christian in spite of* being brilliant at everything else, was, at the same time, dealing with reports on the wreck of the 'Royal Charter'. That strong challenge to his Christian beliefs was probably the catalyst that made him commit suicide in the brutal way he chose. **

* Just to mention that the choice of phrase was deliberate!
**I haven't actually read that yet, but the implication is there and I will come back and correct if necessary.

How shocking it is that today still so many people do not seem to have any real idea of the TofE.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Susan,

How shocking it is that today still so many people do not seem to have any real idea of the TofE.

There are even some who claim "of course I understand it" before unwittingly telling us that they don't understand it at all!