Searching for GOD...

[Sriram]

There will always be things that we do not know about; but it can be a bit of a waste of time speculating about such things, which is why we work with the evidence that we do have.

Why not speculate?  We are finding these 'random' events all over the place, more so in evolution. It is these 'random' variations in fact, that form the basis of complexity and variation.  Instead of brushing them off as 'random'....speculating about their possible cause is certainly worthwhile.

And now that you concede that true randomness may not exist, it is all the more meaningful to speculate and try to understand what it is all about.

[torridon]

Why not speculate?  We are finding these 'random' events all over the place, more so in evolution. It is these 'random' variations in fact, that form the basis of complexity and variation.  Instead of brushing them off as 'random'....speculating about their possible cause is certainly worthwhile.

And now that you concede that true randomness may not exist, it is all the more meaningful to speculate and try to understand what it is all about.

'Random' as in random gene copying errors, is not true randomness, or at least, we cannot claim such with any conviction.  Rather that is the more casual use of the word random, meaning, that for all practical purposes we can consider it random; a consequence of the incalculability of chaotic systems

[Stranger]

But the reason is determined by consciously driven human will.
Reasons for our choices are deliberately formed within our conscious awareness.

How does the will make up its mind, entirely due to causes or not?

Are these reasons formed entirely due to causes or not?

Not in the inevitable consequences of physical reactions.

If our choices are not the "inevitable consequences" of what led up to them, that is just another way of saying that they involve randomness.

[Stranger]

Much of my evidence is based upon the obvious limitations of what can be achieved from physically predetermined reactions of material elements.  The personal optimism of what can be achieved from nothing but material reactions shows no bounds for for some posters on this thread.

Except you haven't provided any evidence - just endless incredulity. All the evidence we have is that consciousness is something that brains produce.

What's more, a lot of your incredulity is to do with choices being determined by the past, which isn't actually a 'problem' that you can 'solve' by positing a non-physical soul, for all the reasons that have been explained multiple times and you are too afraid to think about.

So you've compounded personal incredulity with the huge logical blunder of thinking that you can escape causality, without introducing randomness, just by imagining a non-physical soul.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I‘m at a loss to know how you manage to cram so much wrongness into so few words.

You seem to be oblivious to the obvious…[

Whenever you use the word “obvious” it’s code for, “I don’t like this, but I have no arguments to support me so I’ll call it obvious and hope no-one notices the difference". If you think something to be obvious, then you need to explain why. It's obvious to me that I'm touching the keyboard in front of me. Deeper thinking though tells me that I'm not.

… short sightedness of the logic you are espousing,

I’m not espousing anything. I’m just explaining that certain arguments are false arguments – these fallacies are well understood and codified, yet you return to them again and again despite being corrected when you do it. I merely ask whether this detonation of your claim to think deeply about things troubles you at all, and your latest evasion suggests that it doesn’t.
 

and which deliberately ignores any evidence which can't be verified by limited human scientific knowledge.

First, if you think something to be evidence and logic to be insufficient to verify it, then you still have all your work ahead of you to find something else to verify it. Just asserting things to be true isn’t evidence of any kind.

Second this has nothing to do with your initial problem, namely that you rely heavily on logical fallacies. Even if your seriously think you have evidence, very bad arguments don’t suddenly become good ones just because you happen to like where they lead.

This isn’t difficult stuff AB, even for someone as thinking impaired as you.

Second,   Your logic seems to be based on the presumption that if it can't be scientifically verified, it either does not exist, or it is some form of illusion, or it can be equated with belief in leprechauns.

First, “my logic” (ie, just logic) isn’t based on any such presumption. A logical fallacy is a logical fallacy is a logical fallacy no matter what the subject it happens to concern.

Second, anything “may” exist (unless it’s self-contradictory, like your notion of “soul”) – gods, unicorns, aliens on Alpha Centauri, whatever. Your problem though is that using false arguments tells you nothing about whether any of them actually do exist.   

Third, if the same bad argument can produce gods, leprechauns or anything else with equal facility than epistemologically the arguments are precisely equivalent.

My offer to educate you on the basics of logical argument stands by the way, though I’m guessing you’ll be as indifferent to it as you were when I offered it to you before.

Oh well. 

[Alan Burns]

How does the will make up its mind, entirely due to causes or not?

Are these reasons formed entirely due to causes or not?

If our choices are not the "inevitable consequences" of what led up to them, that is just another way of saying that they involve randomness.

You need to get to grips with the self determining power bestowed on us by the consciously driven will of the human soul.  Without it we can be nothing but biological robots with no will of our own.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You need to get to grips with the self determining power bestowed on us by the consciously driven will of the human soul.

How can someone “get to grips” with something he’s been given no cogent reason to think exists in the first place?

Without it we can be nothing but biological robots with no will of our own.

That’s not true, and it’s a fallacy too (the argumentun ad consequentiam – one of your favourites). 

Your desperation is showing here.

[Alan Burns]

    Without it we can be nothing but biological robots with no will of our own.

That’s not true, and it’s a fallacy too (the argumentun ad consequentiam – one of your favourites). 

Of course it must be true,
In the materialistic scenario, what we perceive to be our will would be entirely predetermined by the physically controlled electro chemical activity in our material brains - hence a biological robot with no will of its own.

[torridon]

You need to get to grips with the self determining power bestowed on us by the consciously driven will of the human soul.  Without it we can be nothing but biological robots with no will of our own.

We do have a will of our own, but it derives from something, it does not spring out of thin air. - that would be random.  There are always reasons underlying the things we want/don't want.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Of course it must be true,

No it mustn't. To be true, this robot of yours would have to have consciousness and self-awareness equivalent to our own. So too for that matter would your boulder rolling down a hill if you wanted that analogy to work. 

In the materialistic scenario, what we perceive to be our will would be entirely predetermined by the physically controlled electro chemical activity in our material brains - hence a biological robot with no will of its own.

Wrong again. Only if you posited a robot with the functionality we have would our material selves be equivalent to that robot, and besides your basic mistake of an argumentum ad consequentiam (the correction of which entirely typically you've just ignored) still applies. Your not liking a consequence of an argument does not invalidate that argument.

Why is this so difficult for you?     

[Alan Burns]

We do have a will of our own, but it derives from something, it does not spring out of thin air. - that would be random.  There are always reasons underlying the things we want/don't want.

Of course you have a will of your own.
But what determines your will.?
Are you in control of it?
Or is it just a consequence to uncontrollable predetermined physical reactions?
There can be no compromise - it must be one or the other.

[SteveH]

That's nice for a change...!

So, if true randomness does not exist, there could be some external influence that we know nothing about.  That is the point.

There could be, but how do you prove it, and if you can't, what use is it as a theory?

[Stranger]

You need to get to grips with the self determining power bestowed on us by the consciously driven will of the human soul.

Evasion noted. You need to get to grips with logical reasoning and do some real thinking about the problem instead of just ignoring the arguments and questions put to you.

[Another thought-free response along the lines of "but how can I do real thinking if..." would just be more evasion.]

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Of course you have a will of your own.

No-one says otherwise. So long as you don't overreach into the impossibility of claiming it be be free of logical constraints, that's fine.

But what determines your will.?

Brains.

Are you in control of it?

Meaningless question as it just assumes a separate "you" to be "in control".

Or is it just a consequence to uncontrollable predetermined physical reactions?

There's no "just" about it and essentially that's what the evidence and reasoning tells us, yes. They're "uncontrollable" though only in the sense that there's no good reason tho think there to be a separate "you" to do the controlling.

There can be no compromise - it must be one or the other.

Which is why you're option is almost certainly wrong.

[Alan Burns]

Wrong again. Only if you posited a robot with the functionality we have would our material selves be equivalent to that robot, .......

Which is exactly my point.
We could not achieve such functionality without the ability to consciously control our own thoughts, words and actions.

[Stranger]

Of course you have a will of your own.
But what determines your will.?
Are you in control of it?
Or is it just a consequence to uncontrollable predetermined physical reactions?
There can be no compromise - it must be one or the other.

No, it mustn't, it can easily be both. You are (again) simply assuming that there is a 'you' that is separate from physical reactions. That is begging the question.

And you are still totally ignoring the logic.

Saying choices are not entirely determined by the past, is just another way of saying that they involve randomness. They literally mean the same thing.

AND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PHYSICAL WORLD.

[Sriram]

'Random' as in random gene copying errors, is not true randomness, or at least, we cannot claim such with any conviction.  Rather that is the more casual use of the word random, meaning, that for all practical purposes we can consider it random; a consequence of the incalculability of chaotic systems

No...that's just a cop out.

Once we agree that true randomness may not exist....and we are calling something 'random' just to fill in the gaps...that opens out very many possibilities. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Which is exactly my point.
We could not achieve such functionality without the ability to consciously control our own thoughts, words and actions.

Yet again, you’ve missed it entirely. If a robot existed that could do that, then (but only then) would your analogy hold. And if that did happen, the answer to calling us “robots” would then be, “so what?”.

That’s why your mistake of an argumentum ad consequentiam (the correction to which you’ve still ignored) is hopeless. You might not like the answer the logic leads to, but your dislike alone cannot falsify that logic.   

Just think - if only you'd taken up my offer of explaining to you basic logical argument maybe you wouldn't have just repeated the exactly same mistake you've made so often before.

[torridon]

Of course you have a will of your own.
But what determines your will.?
Are you in control of it?
Or is it just a consequence to uncontrollable predetermined physical reactions?
There can be no compromise - it must be one or the other.

If I have a choice of tea or coffee, and the tea appeals more to me than the coffee, I cannot force the coffee to be more appealing.  I have no control over it.  Just as when I look at the sky I have no control over what colour it appears to be, or if I put a cherry in my mouth I cannot control how pleasant or otherwise the taste is.  This is how life is.  We do not control our tastes or beliefs or preferences in the naive way you seem to think.  When we make a choice, we are identifying the available option that has the most appeal to us but we cannot control how much things appeal to us.

[Stranger]

No...that's just a cop out.

Once we agree that true randomness may not exist....and we are calling something 'random' just to fill in the gaps...that opens out very many possibilities.

Of course it isn't a cop out. Even if there is no true randomness there are plenty of things that are random for all practical purposes; flipping a coin for example.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Yet again, you’ve missed it entirely. If a robot existed that could do that, then (but only then) would your analogy hold. And if that did happen, the answer to calling us “robots” would then be, “so what?”.

Not sure what point you are trying to make.
It would be theoretically possible to build a robot which mimicked self awareness and freewill, but it would certainly not have any real self awareness.  And it would need a great deal of intelligently driven human will to build it.  And it would, of course, need to be modelled on something which had real self awareness and freewill.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Not sure what point you are trying to make.

No doubt.

It would be theoretically possible to build a robot which mimicked self awareness and freewill,…

No, not mimicked – has. Given an artificially made brain of equivalent complexity to our own, there’s no reason to think that consciousness, self-awareness etc wouldn't emerge for the robot too.

…but it would certainly not have any real self awareness.

Why on earth not?

(Could you perhaps try answer this without collapsing into your usual litany of logical errors?)

And it would need a great deal of intelligently driven human will to build it.

It would need something to build it, yes (essentially to replicate evolution) - but that’s not relevant to the point.

And it would, of course, need to be modelled on something which had real self awareness and freewill.

No it wouldn’t. We see properties emerge pretty much everywhere we look without those properties existing in any of the components in the system. It’s the interaction of the components that gives rise to the emergent property, not the individual components themselves. You’ve never understood this, but there it is nonetheless.

And the point of course is that if you wanted to call that system with as much sentience as we have a “robot” that would be up to you, but it doesn’t dig you out of the hole of the argumentum ad consequntiam you created for yourself. 

[Alan Burns]

If I have a choice of tea or coffee, and the tea appeals more to me than the coffee, I cannot force the coffee to be more appealing.  I have no control over it.  Just as when I look at the sky I have no control over what colour it appears to be, or if I put a cherry in my mouth I cannot control how pleasant or otherwise the taste is.  This is how life is.  We do not control our tastes or beliefs or preferences in the naive way you seem to think.  When we make a choice, we are identifying the available option that has the most appeal to us but we cannot control how much things appeal to us.

There are some things in which we have no choice, and there are some things which we have freedom to choose.  It does not take a great deal of intelligence to work out which is which.

[BeRational]

Not sure what point you are trying to make.
It would be theoretically possible to build a robot which mimicked self awareness and freewill, but it would certainly not have any real self awareness.  And it would need a great deal of intelligently driven human will to build it.  And it would, of course, need to be modelled on something which had real self awareness and freewill.

But if it thought it had free will, how would it know any different?

I think that was the point.

Just because you do not like the outcome, does not make the outcome wrong.

[BeRational]

There are some things in which we have no choice, and there are some things which we have freedom to choose.  It does not take a great deal of intelligence to work out which is which.

How can you tell?

Once you have made the choice, how do you know you could have made another choice?

Try believing there is no god.

How did you get on trying that?