Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

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.

No Alan, unless your soul is making choices that are entirely (pre)determined by the past, it can play no part in a deterministic system. FFS! This has nothing to do with whether your soul is real or not, or even if it's possible - it's just the meaning of the word - see references in #32591 and #32601.

Jeez, what's the matter with you? Not content with asserting the impossible without basis in logic or evidence, you also want to make words mean whatever you want, too.

[Stranger]

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.

This (once again) is basically a lie: an attempt to claim that our experience of being able to think and do what we want is the same as your claims about how that comes about.

The only reality being demonstrated is that people (most of us anyway) can think and compose posts. There is nothing about that that is incompatible with deterministic (that means predetermined by the past) minds.

If you want to argue for something else, you need evidence or logic. Perhaps you could give up the dishonesty and try to supply some of one or the other...?

[torridon]

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

Yes, that would be me.  My mind.  It is the idea that my mind has to have another mind inside it to make its mind up which is bizarre.  This is why minds evolved, to decide between alternatives, to make choices.  We've already got minds, we don't need two.

[ekim]

We've already got minds, we don't need two.

You speak for yourself.  My wife is always in two minds.

[Alan Burns]

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


No Alan, unless your soul is making choices that are entirely (pre)determined by the past, it can play no part in a deterministic system. FFS! This has nothing to do with whether your soul is real or not, or even if it's possible - it's just the meaning of the word - see references in #32591 and #32601.

Jeez, what's the matter with you? Not content with asserting the impossible without basis in logic or evidence, you also want to make words mean whatever you want, too.

You cannot presume to know what a human soul can or can't do.
But you can get a good idea from your own capability to invoke acts of freewill.

[Alan Burns]

Perhaps you could give up the dishonesty and try to supply some of one or the other...?

Once more, my physically predetermined brain activity is being accused of deliberate dishonesty.   

[Alan Burns]

Yes, that would be me.  My mind.  It is the idea that my mind has to have another mind inside it to make its mind up which is bizarre.  This is why minds evolved, to decide between alternatives, to make choices.  We've already got minds, we don't need two.

But if your conscious mind is the human soul, it does not need a controller.  It is the controller which has the ability to make its own consciously driven choices rather than be subject to inevitable physically predetermined reactions to past events.

[Stranger]

You cannot presume to know what a human soul can or can't do.

I didn't. If this 'soul' is deterministic, that means that everything it does is (pre)determined by the past - something you keep on insisting is not the case.

Why do you keep on trying to redefine words?

But you can get a good idea from your own capability to invoke acts of freewill.

Which tells me exactly nothing about the truth of your claims. Logic tells me that your claims are impossible. Evidence for your claims is completely absent.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You cannot presume to know what a human soul can or can't do.

First, that’s your old scam of overreaching – as you’ve never managed to produce even a shred of evidence for a supposed “soul”, what you should have said there was the conditional “could or could not do”.

Second, how is it then that you presume precisely to know what this supposed “soul” could or could not do by telling us stuff about it, like the deeply irrational notion that it “self-generates” its decisions neither deterministically nor randomly?

Third, if you want to slap the label “spiritual” onto this supposed soul of yours to get it off the hook its internal contradictions, then you can say anything you like about it in any case. It’s “spiritual” remember, which in your head seems to mean precisely “magic”.   

But you can get a good idea from your own capability to invoke acts of freewill.

No, you can only get a very bad idea because of the superficiality of the thinking involved.

Just out of interest, as you always run away from the question of how you’d get from your experience of something to the explanation for it, perhaps instead you’d care to tell us why you’ll never answer that question.

What exactly are you so frightened of?

[torridon]

But if your conscious mind is the human soul, it does not need a controller.  It is the controller which has the ability to make its own consciously driven choices rather than be subject to inevitable physically predetermined reactions to past events.

'Soul' is spurious in all that.  Minds make choices, that is what they evolved to do.  Minds do not need another mind, they are quite capable of conscious decision making, this is what they do.

[Stranger]

Once more, my physically predetermined brain activity is being accused of deliberate dishonesty.   

Yes, Alan, human minds are perfectly capable of deliberate dishonesty (some more than others).

On the other hand, the ingredient you want to add to a mind, the bit that isn't entirely due to the past, that is to say, said mind's initial conditions and subsequent experience, must not be due to its initial conditions and subsequent experience. In other words, it must be totally unrelated to the mind's initial conditions and subsequent experience. In short, it must be unrelated to the mind itself, hence it cannot possibly be deliberate.

Perhaps one day you'll stop running away from the logic and hiding behind word redefinitions, pretence that experience is the same as explanation, baseless assertions, logical fallacies, and transparent evasion tactics... Was that a flock of pigs?

[Gordon]

But if your conscious mind is the human soul, it does not need a controller.  It is the controller which has the ability to make its own consciously driven choices rather than be subject to inevitable physically predetermined reactions to past events.

Your problem is, Alan, that you're trying to squeeze 'god' in where it ain't relevant, and nor is it required as an explanation.

P.S. you've still to advise how 'souls' move between dimensions.

[Alan Burns]

If this 'soul' is deterministic, that means that everything it does is (pre)determined by the past - something you keep on insisting is not the case.

Not if the spiritual nature of the soul exists and acts in its own present

[Alan Burns]

'Soul' is spurious in all that.  Minds make choices, that is what they evolved to do.  Minds do not need another mind, they are quite capable of conscious decision making, this is what they do.

So you claim, but we do not yet have any idea of what comprises our conscious awareness or how it works.

[Alan Burns]

Yes, Alan, human minds are perfectly capable of deliberate dishonesty (some more than others).

So how does this deliberation become invoked within a physically predetermined environment?
Is there some dishonest predetermined electron activity taking place?

[Sebastian Toe]

Not if the spiritual nature of the soul exists and acts in its own present

How can a soul, which according to you, exists in a timeless dimension, have it's own "present"?

[Gordon]

Not if the spiritual nature of the soul exists and acts in its own present

Now you're just making stuff up as you go along.

[Stranger]

I didn't. If this 'soul' is deterministic, that means that everything it does is (pre)determined by the past - something you keep on insisting is not the case.

Not if the spiritual nature of the soul exists and acts in its own present

PAY ATTENTION

I'm talking about the meaning of the word "deterministic". It means that everything is defined by the past state an inputs. That's what the word means. I just wanted you to at least stop abusing the English language. Why would you want to pretend that a word means something that it doesn't?

Even if your soul exists and can do the impossible things you claim it can, it wouldn't be deterministic.

[Stranger]

Yes, Alan, human minds are perfectly capable of deliberate dishonesty (some more than others).

On the other hand, the ingredient you want to add to a mind, the bit that isn't entirely due to the past, that is to say, said mind's initial conditions and subsequent experience, must not be due to its initial conditions and subsequent experience. In other words, it must be totally unrelated to the mind's initial conditions and subsequent experience. In short, it must be unrelated to the mind itself, hence it cannot possibly be deliberate.

Perhaps one day you'll stop running away from the logic and hiding behind word redefinitions, pretence that experience is the same as explanation, baseless assertions, logical fallacies, and transparent evasion tactics... Was that a flock of pigs?

Yes, Alan, human minds are perfectly capable of deliberate dishonesty (some more than others).

So how does this deliberation become invoked within a physically predetermined environment?
Is there some dishonest predetermined electron activity taking place?

You really have no shame, do you?

Once again running scared from the actual logic in order to employ one of your favourite distraction tactics of asking a question that has been answered endless times before, with a side helping of attempted ridicule. In effect, pretending that the answers don't exist.

Even if you were going to ignore the logic (as you always do), and wanted to return to the question, the honest approach would be acknowledge what has been previously said about it and start from there.

You religion clearly does not encourage honesty.

[torridon]

So you claim, but we do not yet have any idea of what comprises our conscious awareness or how it works.

Untrue, we have lots of ideas about consciousness, we know which cortical structures are critical to it, we know the broad timeline of its evolutionary history, we know how to measure it, we know how to manipulate it.  It simply is untrue to claim we have no ideas.  It is one of hot areas of research of our times.  I've lost count of the times this has been explained to you.  Do you ever actually bother to read ?

[Stranger]

...the soul exists and acts in its own present

This seems to have become another of your undefined phrases that you think is somehow significant, despite plenty of explanations of why it can't be.

What is this "present"?

In the normal, everyday sense ("living in the present") it's irrelevant to the logic of the situation. If we try to define it in some concrete way we run into the fact that there no such thing in physics and the even a single moment is relative. If we ignore all that. then it becomes an infinitesimal moment in which nothing can perform any acts.

So how exactly do you define it and what relevance does it have to the logical arguments you keep ignoring?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

So you claim, but we do not yet have any idea of what comprises our conscious awareness or how it works.

Another lie. "No idea" is not the same thing as "an incomplete understanding", "competing theories", "a large body of research findings" etc.

"No idea" would on the other hand properly apply to the supposed workings of your various faith claims ("soul" etc).

Do you not think that being honestly wrong would at least be better than being dishonestly wrong?   

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Not if the spiritual nature of...

Magic. MAGIC! MAGIC!!!

Why is no-one listening to me when I keep explaining it: It's magic innit?

[Alan Burns]

So how does this deliberation become invoked within a physically predetermined environment?
Is there some dishonest predetermined electron activity taking place?

You really have no shame, do you?

Once again running scared from the actual logic in order to employ one of your favourite distraction tactics of asking a question that has been answered endless times before, with a side helping of attempted ridicule. In effect, pretending that the answers don't exist.

Even if you were going to ignore the logic (as you always do), and wanted to return to the question, the honest approach would be acknowledge what has been previously said about it and start from there.

You religion clearly does not encourage honesty.

But nothing which has previously been said can contradict this basic logic.

To accuse a physically predetermined being of deliberate dishonesty is equivalent to declaring that a boulder rollng down a hill has taken the wrong path!

You previously admitted that "humans can be deliberately dishonest, some more than others"

For this to be true, the human needs the freedom to deliberately choose a dishonest option.  A physically predefined reaction can never be deemed to be a deliberate act of dishonesty.

Of course we are all capable of deliberate acts of dishonesty, because we are human, with the freedom to consciously choose between right and wrong.

[Enki]

So how does this deliberation become invoked within a physically predetermined environment?
Is there some dishonest predetermined electron activity taking place?

Why not, Alan. Where do you think it comes from? Surely not 'the consciously driven will of the human soul' ?

No, that can't be because plenty of animals show evidence that they can be deceitful, from dunnocks to squirrels to chimps(http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131125-can-this-sneaky-chimp-read-minds).

And other animals don't have 'souls' do they, Alan?