Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

But the human capacity for exercising their freedom to choose goes way beyond anything which can be derived entirely from the past.

Then, logically, it must involve randomness - which can't contribute to freedom. Once again, you've just ignored the arguments and made this baseless, reasoning-free assertion.

Will you ever have the honesty and courage to face up to the arguments or admit you can't?

[Alan Burns]

Then, logically, it must involve randomness - which can't contribute to freedom. Once again, you've just ignored the arguments and made this baseless, reasoning-free assertion.

Will you ever have the honesty and courage to face up to the arguments or admit you can't?

In saying this, you dismiss the human capacity for imaginative, creative thinking which is not entirely driven by past events and certainly not random, but driven by our God given freedom to consciously drive our own thought processes.  You cannot dismiss this reality with your short sighted reasoning, which in itself provides evidence for your freedom to drive your own thoughts.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Like consciousness as an emergent property you mean? Such a pity that you have no idea what "irony" means.

Your faith in non existent materialistic explanations blinds you to the impossibility of a single entity of conscious awareness existing within material reactions.

Mine too. So long as I'm not daft enough to think that my experience of freedom also provides the explanation for it (and that it must therefore be free of all logical constraints) that's fine.   

I see that you are now using Stranger's term of "an experience of freedom" to disguise the  implication that any concept of conscious freedom must be an illusion in your materialistic scenario.

You're not "aware" of that at all. You believe it to be true because it satisfies some faith beliefs you hold to be inviolable, and in any case the materialistic explanation wouldn't "deny such freedom" in the slightest. 

No.  I stand by the fact that freedom to choose cannot exist in a materialistic scenario where choices become inevitable reactions.

Yes you do have to conclude that, but only if you rely on the broken reasoning that's led you to that conclusion. More robust reasoning though would lead you to a different conclusion entirely.

My reasoning is more robust than any attempts to shoehorn the reality of our existence to fit in with an entirely materialistic scenario where every event is an unavoidable consequence to physically predetermined past events.

[Stranger]

In saying this, you dismiss the human capacity for imaginative, creative thinking...

Drivel.

...which is not entirely driven by past events and certainly not random, but driven by our God given freedom to consciously drive our own thought processes.

Baseless assertion. Are you not capable of grasping that just asserting something is pointless?

You cannot dismiss this reality with your short sighted reasoning, which in itself provides evidence for your freedom to drive your own thoughts.

This is (as I've explained many times before) basically a lie. Our experience is what it is, and is not itself in dispute. Everybody is offering explanations for it, claiming it as evidence for yours alone is dishonest.

Where is the fault in the reasoning that shows your view to be self-contradictory, in what way, exactly, is it short-sighted?

Reasoning-free assertions and lying about our experience being evidence for them, really isn't having the honesty and courage to face up to the arguments that are against you.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

In saying this, you dismiss the human capacity for imaginative, creative thinking which is not entirely driven by past events and certainly not random…

Then it’s logically impossible unless you invoke magic to get you off the hook.

…but driven by our God given freedom to consciously drive our own thought processes.

And right on cue, there it comes. And again you collapse into circular reasoning – you start with an argument for god, that arguments is falsified, then you say that the falsification fails because it’s god all along. And round and round and round and round and… you go.

Desperate stuff AB, just desperate.
 

You cannot dismiss this reality…

Yes he can. It’s not “this” reality at all it’s just your reality, and a deeply irrational one it is at that.

…with your short sighted reasoning,…

Reasoning doesn’t become “short sighted” because it happens to conflict with some faith beliefs you have.

…choose to think  which in itself provides evidence for your freedom to drive your own thoughts.

One of your bigger lies (along with your claim to think deeply about things) that’s been exposed countless times only for you to ignore the falsification in order to repeat the lie.

What does your persistent lying for Jesus say about you do you think?

[Stranger]

I see that you are now using Stranger's term of "an experience of freedom" to disguise the  implication that any concept of conscious freedom must be an illusion in your materialistic scenario.

It is self-consistent freedom in the sense of the dictionary definition. Stop playing word games. Your own personal view of freedom is impossible whether the scenario is "materialistic" or not, because it's self-contradictory.

My reasoning is more robust...

This is a joke, yes? Where is this reasoning of which you speak? All I've seen has been baseless assertions, a large selection of logical fallacies, and the studious ignoring of any actual logic presented to you.

You haven't even got the courage to try to find an actual flaw in the arguments put to you.

[Alan Burns]

What does your persistent lying for Jesus say about you do you think?

I do not tell deliberate lies.
I witness to the truth.
In a predetermined materialistic scenario it would be a logical impossibility for anyone to deliberately tell a lie, because in this scenario the source of any deliberation disappears into the ether of past uncontrollable events, and no amount of cleverly contrived wordy explanations can be used to deny this logic.

[Alan Burns]

It is self-consistent freedom in the sense of the dictionary definition. Stop playing word games. Your own personal view of freedom is impossible whether the scenario is "materialistic" or not, because it's self-contradictory.

So you keep saying, yet I continue to demonstrate that my freedom to choose is a reality.  It may well be self contradictory to you, but is is a reality to me - a reality which I continue to demonstrate.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Your faith in non existent materialistic explanations blinds you to the impossibility of a single entity of conscious awareness existing within material reactions.

There is no such “impossibility” – that’s just something you’ve made up without once bothering even to try to demonstrate it. Not sure why you keep lying about this, but that’s a matter for you I guess.

I see that you are now using Stranger's term of "an experience of freedom" to disguise the  implication that any concept of conscious freedom must be an illusion in your materialistic scenario.

Actually it was my term I think, and in any case you’ve just done your standard slippery evasion stunt. You remember that I asked you countless times how you’d get from your experience of something to the explanation for it only for you always just to ignore the question?

Well, your endless running away doesn’t mean the question doesn’t still stand. 

No.  I stand by the fact that freedom to choose cannot exist in a materialistic scenario where choices become inevitable reactions.

It’s not a fact. It’s just an assertion you make with not even an attempt at an argument for it. You can have any opinions you like, but what you cannot have is your own facts.

My reasoning is more robust than any attempts to shoehorn the reality of our existence to fit in with an entirely materialistic scenario where every event is an unavoidable consequence to physically predetermined by past events.

Your reasoning is broken. How do I know that? I know it for the reason you always ignore – various arguments are demonstrably false, and those arguments have been described and codified. They're called "fallacies".You try those fallacious arguments repeatedly, which means your arguments are necessarily wrong. No if, no buts.   

Ordinarily you just ignore the problem so you can repeat exactly the same mistakes. On the rare occasion you bother to respond, you claim the arguments that undo you to be “flawed”, but as you never bother to explain why they're flawed what you actually mean by that word is “does not agree with some faith beliefs I cannot allow to be challenged”.

It’s all deeply dishonest, but that’s that damage your faith has done to you I guess.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I do not tell deliberate lies.

Yes you do. Your slippery evasions, your misrepresentations of what people actually say, your repetition of the same mistakes that have been corrected endlessly (without ever bothering to address the corrections) etc are all forms of lying.

I witness to the truth.

No you don't. You "witness" (ie, make assertions about) your truth, which is a very different thing.

In a predetermined materialistic scenario it would be a logical impossibility for anyone to deliberately tell a lie, because in this scenario the source of any deliberation disappears into the ether of past uncontrollable events, and no amount of cleverly contrived wordy explanations can be used to deny this logic.

Still lying for Jesus then I see. Didn't he say something about not bearing false witness, or does that not apply to you do you think?

[Alan Burns]

It’s all deeply dishonest, but that’s that damage your faith has done to you I guess.

Is it dishonest to point out the impossibility of having any freedom to choose if everything is entirely predetermined by the laws of physics?
Is it dishonest to explain that material reactions do not constitute conscious awareness?
Is it dishonest to witness to the most feasible explanations which make sense of the reality we live in?

[SteveH]

Oh FFS. LOCK THIS THREAD!

[Stranger]

I do not tell deliberate lies.

The evidence is against you. Why do you keep on trying to claim our experience is the same as your contradictory and baseless assertions about how it works?

It's a blatant lie; every single proposed explanation is about the same experience.

In a predetermined materialistic scenario it would be a logical impossibility for anyone to deliberately tell a lie...

The converse is actually true. Unless your choice to lie was the result of you (what the past has made you), then you couldn't deliberately lie.

So you keep saying, yet I continue to demonstrate that my freedom to choose is a reality.  It may well be self contradictory to you, but is is a reality to me.

There's the lie again. The reality of your experience is not the same as what you call 'freedom'. Everything we experience and every post on this thread (being able to think things through and post what we want) is consistent with deterministic ("predetermined") minds.

If you want to claim otherwise, you need to argue it, not just assert it.

The arguments against what you say have been presented in detail and you have never even tried to point out what you think is wrong with them. "It must be flawed because I'm right" isn't a counterargument.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Is it dishonest to point out the impossibility of having any freedom to choose if everything is entirely predetermined by the laws of physics?
Is it dishonest to explain that material reactions do not constitute conscious awareness?
Is it dishonest to witness to the most feasible explanations which make sense of the reality we live in?

Yes to all for the reasons I've just given you and you've just ignored. You're not doing any of those things - you're just asserting them.

Do you think Jesus would be proud of you for your behaviour here? 

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Yes to all for the reasons I've just given you and you've just ignored. You're not doing any of those things - you're just asserting them.

Do you think Jesus would be proud of you for your behaviour here?

I can assure you that my conscience is clear.

[Stranger]

Is it dishonest to point out the impossibility of having any freedom to choose if everything is entirely predetermined by the laws of physics?

Yes - because you are trying to use the ambiguity of the phrase "freedom to choose" to mean both our experience (we can do as we want) and your impossible claims about how it works.

Is it dishonest to explain that material reactions do not constitute conscious awareness?

You haven't explained it.

Is it dishonest to witness to the most feasible explanations which make sense of the reality we live in?

You haven't suggested a feasible explanation.

[Alan Burns]

There's the lie again. The reality of your experience is not the same as what you call 'freedom'. Everything we experience and every post on this thread (being able to think things through and post what we want) is consistent with deterministic ("predetermined") minds.

If you want to claim otherwise, you need to argue it, not just assert it.

But you dismiss my arguments and label them as assertions.
But whatever you categorise them to be, my posts continue to demonstrate my conscious freedom to deliberately choose what I write.
And nowhere in your reasoning or logic have I found any feasible explanation for the ultimate cause of any deliberation.  So I will continue to deliberately choose to demonstrate my gift of freewill.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I can assure you that my conscience is clear.

Sadly, I believe you. Telling lies for Jesus will do that to a person who thinks the end justifies the means.

It shouldn't be though, it really shouldn't.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But you dismiss my arguments and label them as assertions.
But whatever you categorise them to be, my posts continue to demonstrate my conscious freedom to deliberately choose what I write.
And nowhere in your reasoning or logic have I found any feasible explanation for the ultimate cause of any deliberation.  So I will continue to deliberately choose to demonstrate my gift of freewill.

I’m just telling lies for Jesus
All the live-long day
Yes I’m telling lies for Jesus
So the arguments go away

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Sadly, I believe you. Telling lies for Jesus will do that to a person who thinks the end justifies the means.

How can you possibly accuse me of lies?
I would never subscribe to the dangerous precedent of thinking that the end justifies the means.

[torridon]

Just because we do not know how something works does not infer that it does not happen.
My freedom to choose is a fundamental reality of my existence.
And I am fully aware that my freedom to choose can have no physically defined explanation, because any such explanation would deny such freedom.
Therefore I have to conclude that my freedom to choose has a non physical source which emanates from my conscious awareness (which is me).

We have explained how it works, in principle at least, numerous times, you just seem unable to grasp it no doubt because you have this fixation with 'freedom'.  It is your concept of freedom that is fundamentally flawed, and until you understand that you aren't going to make any progress.  The real sense in which we are free is in that nobody is preventing us from getting what we want.  This is what freedom really means.   You cannot be free from yourself, you cannot be free from logic, you cannot be free from cause and effect without being random.  It is your concept of freedom that is fundamentally irrational.

[Stranger]

But you dismiss my arguments and label them as assertions.

Do you honestly not know the difference?

But whatever you categorise them to be, my posts continue to demonstrate my conscious ability to deliberately choose what I write.

No they don't. I can't tell from reading them if you are deliberately choosing to write them, you could be being forced. More to the point, however, deliberately choosing is perfectly consistent with deterministic ("predetermined") minds.

And nowhere in your reasoning or logic have I found any feasible explanation for the ultimate cause of any deliberation.

That's just incredulity and your 'explanation' is logically impossible.

So I will continue to deliberately choose to demonstrate my gift of freewill.

You are demonstrating nothing that is inconsistent with a deterministic ("predetermined") mind.

And the arguments stand as to why your version of freedom is self-contradictory, and they are actual arguments that you have yet to even try to counter...

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

How can you possibly accuse me of lies?

I just told you in Reply 33359 ("Your slippery evasions, your misrepresentations of what people actually say, your repetition of the same mistakes that have been corrected endlessly (without ever bothering to address the corrections) etc are all forms of lying") which, as so often, you have just ignored.

I would never, never subscribe to the dangerous precedent of thinking that the end justifies the means.

That's exactly what you do. Why else would you be so dishonest?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

I just told you in Reply 33359 ("Your slippery evasions, your misrepresentations of what people actually say, your repetition of the same mistakes that have been corrected endlessly (without ever bothering to address the corrections) etc are all forms of lying") which, as so often, you have just ignored.

But I do not recognise them as evasions or misrepresentations.  I write what I sincerely believe to be the truth.  And I wish I had time and space to address my so called "corrections" more fully.

That's exactly what you do. Why else would you be so dishonest?

It is your personal opinion that I am deliberately lying.
It is something I could never do, because there is no point in basing any argument on a lie.  I am not here for an ego trip.  I am simply witnessing to what I believe to be the truth.

[Stranger]

And I wish I had time and space to address my so called "corrections" more fully.

If you stopped endlessly repeating the same things over and over and over again, I'm sure you'd save more than enough time to address what has been said to you.

You never seem to even try...