Searching for GOD...

[Enki]

Can you not see the irony in that you are asking me to consciously choose to move over to your way of thinking, but your way of thinking actually denies me the freedom to do so?

For me to develop a more nuanced and thoughtful understanding of life would require my freedom to drive my own thought processes.  A freedom which you deny exists.

You do drive your own thought processes. Alan. No one else does. You have the freedom to do so because we assume there are no outside constraints. A deterministic system doesn't get rid of any of that freedom, it seeks to explain it. A deterministic system would include each and every reason or cause which influences the mind, so why would someone else's thoughts and ideas not necessarily be part of this? The advertising industry depends on it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Stranger,

I  (and several others) are still waiting for a logical response.

Not far from where I live is a disused railway line called the Flitch Way that’s been converted into an attractive walking, cycling etc route through the woods. The tracks have gone, but the stations are still there and one in particular has been turned into a café.

The people there enjoying their coffee and cake would be waiting for a train to arrive for less time than you’d wait for a logical response from AB.

[Alan Burns]

You must know (if you've been paying any attention at all) that nobody is denying your ability to think things through and make choices (real world definition).

Unless you are stupid, not paying attention, or unable to understand, I can only conclude that this is a deliberate misrepresentation - a lie.

But in an entirely predetermined world, consciously driven choices can't exist.  There can be nothing but unavoidable predetermined reactions.  Reactions are not choices.  Just describing a reaction as a perceived freedom to choose does not make it a consciously driven choice.  It is still an unavoidable reaction.  Your scenario dictates that we have no choice.

[Alan Burns]

Of course you can develop a more thoughtful understanding of life.  I haven't said you couldn't, stop playing word games and concentrate. You just need to want to do it; hopefully someday you will come to understand it a better attitude worth investing in.

But you said we can't control our wants.
To have control requires a controller.

[Stranger]

But in an entirely predetermined world, consciously driven choices can't exist.

How do you know?

There can be nothing but unavoidable predetermined reactions.

Incredulity, baseless assertions, and language games aside, how do you know that a "consciously driven choice" isn't a "predetermined" reaction?

Perhaps more to the point, how do you answer the logic that tells us that it must be?

Reactions are not choices.  Just describing a reaction as a perceived freedom to choose does not make it a consciously driven choice.  It is still an unavoidable reaction.  Your scenario dictates that we have no choice.

Silly language games.

Look, no matter what you wish different words, like "choice" meant, there is what we actually experience, and there are all the explanations, that many people have come up with, of how that comes about. The former is not the same as, nor is it evidence for, any single one of them. That includes yours.

The experience is not the explanation. Your 'explanation' is (at best) one amongst many.

What is so hard to understand?  Why won't you honestly face up to the arguments and stop trying to hide behind language and a silly attempts to identify experience with explanation?

[torridon]

But you said we can't control our wants.
To have control requires a controller.

Yes, we cannot decide what to want, that makes no sense, on what basis could anyone exercise such control ?  This is why we talk to each other, to influence each other, we don't develop desires in isolation, but rather everything is interconnected

[Alan Burns]

How do you know?

logic

Incredulity, baseless assertions, and language games aside, how do you know that a "consciously driven choice" isn't a "predetermined" reaction?

You can't equate choices with inevitable reactions.
That is a logical statement.

Perhaps more to the point, how do you answer the logic that tells us that it must be?

Any supposed logic which equates choice with unavoidable reaction is obviously flawed.

Silly language games.

Look, no matter what you wish different words, like "choice" meant, there is what we actually experience, and there are all the explanations, that many people have come up with, of how that comes about. The former is not the same as, nor is it evidence for, any single one of them. That includes yours.

The experience is not the explanation. Your 'explanation' is (at best) one amongst many.

What is so hard to understand?  Why won't you honestly face up to the arguments and stop trying to hide behind language and a silly attempts to identify experience with explanation?

The argument is simple.
I have the freedom to consciously choose.

[Alan Burns]

You do drive your own thought processes. Alan. No one else does. You have the freedom to do so because we assume there are no outside constraints. A deterministic system doesn't get rid of any of that freedom, it seeks to explain it. A deterministic system would include each and every reason or cause which influences the mind, so why would someone else's thoughts and ideas not necessarily be part of this? The advertising industry depends on it.

And such a deterministic system would include the consciously driven will of the human soul.  This is the essential element which can free us from the uncontrollable cause and effect derived entirely from physical reactions in our brain cells.

[Stranger]

logic

What logic?

You can't equate choices with inevitable reactions.

Yes, you can. The logic (you know the arguments that I and others have actually posted) tells us that they must be the same.

That is a logical statement.

No, it's just an unjustified statement. Where is this logic? Do you even understand what a logical argument is?

Any supposed logic which equates choice with unavoidable reaction is obviously flawed.

Where is your reasoning?

The argument is simple.
I have the freedom to consciously choose.

Here you are again, totally ignoring everything I said and going back to bland and empty assertions.

By "freedom to consciously choose" do you mean:

• Your subjective internal experience of being free to think and act as you wish? If so, nobody is denying it and it goes no way towards demonstrating your contradictory notion of how it works.
  
  
• Making choices that are not entirely due to the past but involving no randomness? If so, no you don't have that freedom because it's impossible. Neither is it possible to know that you have it by direct experience.

[Gordon]

logicYou can't equate choices with inevitable reactions.
That is a logical statement.Any supposed logic which equates choice with unavoidable reaction is obviously flawed.
The argument is simple.
I have the freedom to consciously choose.

There's your problem, Alan: you are thinking simplistically about something that isn't simple.

[Alan Burns]

What logic?

Yes, you can. The logic (you know the arguments that I and others have actually posted) tells us that they must be the same.

No, it's just an unjustified statement. Where is this logic? Do you even understand what a logical argument is?

Where is your reasoning?

Here you are again, totally ignoring everything I said and going back to bland and empty assertions.

By "freedom to consciously choose" do you mean:

• Your subjective internal experience of being free to think and act as you wish? If so, nobody is denying it and it goes no way towards demonstrating your contradictory notion of how it works.
  
  
• Making choices that are not entirely due to the past but involving no randomness? If so, no you don't have that freedom because it's impossible. Neither is it possible to know that you have it by direct experience.

By "freedom to consciously choose" I mean:

• Your subjective internal experience of being free to think and act as you wish? If so, nobody is denying it and it goes no way towards demonstrating your contradictory notion of how it works.
  
  
• Making choices that are not entirely due to the past but involving no randomness? If so, no you don't have that freedom because it's impossible. Neither is it possible to know that you have it by direct experience.
• The ability of my consciously aware human soul to invoke a choice according to its own will
  
  
  

[Alan Burns]

There's your problem, Alan: you are thinking simplistically about something that isn't simple.

But our ability to think, whether simplistically or not, is in itself evidence of our freedom to think.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

logic

You have none. Calling something “spiritual” in order to take it outside the constraints of logic isn’t logic – it’s just magical thinking. 

You can't equate choices with inevitable reactions.

Yes you can when the workaday experience of choice can only provide an impossible explanation for it. Your experience of choice tells you nothing about what’s actually going on – which is why you always run away when you’re asked how you’d get from one to the other.     

That is a logical statement.

It’s a logically false statement, as you’d know if ever you bothered to engage with the argument that falsifies it.

Any supposed logic which equates choice with unavoidable reaction is obviously flawed.

Why?

We know now that what you mean by “flawed” is in fact, “contradicts some faith beliefs I cannot accept may be wrong” which actually tells you nothing at all about whether or not the arguments you happen not to like are actually flawed.
 

The argument is simple.
I have the freedom to consciously choose.

That’s not an argument – it’s an assertion. It’s also an epistemologically worthless one because it relies on the “it’s magic innit” of “spiritual”, which is the abandonment of argument and logic in favour of mindless woo.

Apart from all that though…

[SteveH]

Cancer Research UK offer a free will service, so if you think you haven't got free-will, contact them.
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/get-involved/donate/leave-a-legacy-gift-in-your-will/free-will-service?ds_kids=p3752141974&adc=cpc&gclid=Cj0KCQiA8_PfBRC3ARIsAOzJ2uqZS7s1TSthg4qdtsMgKC-6j30-ipTKoCeh3_cKkU4-9155zUaS6UUaAhBSEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

[Enki]

And such a deterministic system would include the consciously driven will of the human soul.  This is the essential element which can free us from the uncontrollable cause and effect derived entirely from physical reactions in our brain cells.

No Alan, that is your assertion. There is not the slightest evidence that such a thing as the human 'soul' exists. There is also no reason for it to exist, as far as I can see. My freedom to make choices doesn't need a 'soul' to either choose things deterministically or randomly, my mind is quite capable of doing so on its own.

[Stranger]

By "freedom to consciously choose" I mean:

• Your subjective internal experience of being free to think and act as you wish? If so, nobody is denying it and it goes no way towards demonstrating your contradictory notion of how it works.
  
  
• Making choices that are not entirely due to the past but involving no randomness? If so, no you don't have that freedom because it's impossible. Neither is it possible to know that you have it by direct experience.
• The ability of my consciously aware human soul to invoke a choice according to its own will
  
  
  

In that case, it's an all but meaningless assertion that requires both definition and justification...     

[torridon]

The ability of my consciously aware human soul to invoke a choice according to its own will

Even supposing I have a 'soul' and this soul has its own will in addition my own natural will, the it must also be either deterministic or random.  Adding in 'soul' buys you nothing.  Just a word meaningless salad.
[/list]

[torridon]

But our ability to think, whether simplistically or not, is in itself evidence of our freedom to think.

But my ability to ride a bike, whether skillfully or not, is in itself evidence of my freedom to ride bikes.

So what ?  It just means nobody stopping me.

[Stranger]

And such a deterministic system would include the consciously driven will of the human soul.

Please stop abusing the word "deterministic", your contradictory ideas cannot possibly be part of a deterministic system. See: #32591.

What is it with you and words? Is your name really Humpty Dumpty?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

By "freedom to consciously choose" I mean:

a.   Your subjective internal experience of being free to think and act as you wish? If so, nobody is denying it and it goes no way towards demonstrating your contradictory notion of how it works.
b.   Making choices that are not entirely due to the past but involving no randomness? If so, no you don't have that freedom because it's impossible. Neither is it possible to know that you have it by direct experience.
c.   The ability of my consciously aware human soul to invoke a choice according to its own will

By "gravity" I mean:

a.   In general relativity, the effects of gravitation are ascribed to spacetime curvature instead of a force. The starting point for general relativity is the equivalence principle,
      which equates free fall with inertial motion and describes free-falling inertial objects as being accelerated relative to non-inertial observers on the ground.
   
b.   Pixies holding stuff down with very thin strings

[Alan Burns]

That’s not an argument – it’s an assertion. It’s also an epistemologically worthless one because it relies on the “it’s magic innit” of “spiritual”, which is the abandonment of argument and logic in favour of mindless woo.

My freedom, and yours, to make consciously driven choices is not epistemologically worthless assertion, it is not magic, it is not mindless woo.  It is reality.  A reality you continue to demonstrate in every word you consciously choose to post.

[Alan Burns]

Please stop abusing the word "deterministic", your contradictory ideas cannot possibly be part of a deterministic system.

Only if you refuse to accept the reality of your spiritually determined power to choose, as opposed to your physically predetermined reactions.

[Alan Burns]

Even supposing I have a 'soul' and this soul has its own will in addition my own natural will, the it must also be either deterministic or random.  Adding in 'soul' buys you nothing.  Just a word meaningless salad.

Can you not contemplate the reality of an entity which makes its own mind up?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

My freedom, and yours, to make consciously driven choices is not epistemologically worthless assertion, it is not magic, it is not mindless woo.  It is reality.  A reality you continue to demonstrate in every word you consciously choose to post.

Flat wrong. I could tell you yet again why it's flat wrong, but as you've just ignored the explanation every time it's been given to you already I can't see much point in doing it again.

Can you?

PS And all assertions are epistemologically worthless because that's all they are - assertions.

PPS And yes, all you have is "it's magic innit" and mindless woo because you'll never explain what you mean by "spiritual". So far at least, all you've done is to use it as a label behind which you hide the utter irrationality of your various claims.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Only if you refuse to accept the reality of your spiritually determined power to choose, as opposed to your physically predetermined reactions.

Translation: "Only if you refuse to accept the reality of "it's magic innit" as epistemically valid (but only in respect of my personal faith beliefs because I won't lower the bar for evidence that low for anyone else's personal beliefs)".