Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But I do not recognise them as evasions or misrepresentations.

Then, when you do the things I just described, you should.

I write what I sincerely believe to be the truth.

I don’t doubt that you believe the various assertions you make to be true. That though says nothing to the repeated evasions, the misrepresentations, the repetition of questions that have been answered countless times already, the ignoring of every counter-argument you’re given, the constant claiming of “whats” without ever providing the “hows”, the….etc

Look, I’ll prove it to you. You clearly think there to be a relationship between the depth of your feeling about an experience and the explanation for it. I’ve asked you countless times what you think that relationship to be but NEVER ONCE have you answered. Worse, when I asked you why you would never answer it you just ignored that question too.

And then, when you think the dust has settled a bit, you return to tell us that your experience of something must also provide the explanation for it as if nothing had happened.       

That’s dishonest no matter which way you look at it yet for some reason you think it’s acceptable behaviour. Why?

And I wish I had time and space to address my so called "corrections"…

You do that a lot – poison the well with pejorative terms like “so called”. They are corrections and remain so, at least until you finally get around to making an argument of your own that falsifies them. What you actually do though is just to ignore them, and to repeat the unqualified assertions they rebut (“but it’s impossible for…”) etc.

…more fully.

No, not more fully – at all.

It is your personal opinion that I am deliberately lying.

No it isn’t. The principle of charity allows for thinking you may have made an innocent error the first time, or even the first few times. When you do it over and over again though there’s no other conclusion. The alternative is that you have no idea of the difference between honest and dishonest behaviour so you say whatever you want in the belief that there is no difference. 

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.

No, you are here to assert your personal faith beliefs as if they were universal truths without the hard yards of argument to take you (or anyone else) from one to the other, and to ignore, dismiss or misrepresent the arguments that show you to be wrong.

[Sebastian Toe]

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

Just because we do not know how something works does not infer that it does not happen.

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

Just because we do not know how something works does not infer that it does not happen.

[Enki]

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.

That's at least twice recently that you have suggested that creative, artistic works are a product of our conscious minds. The other one was in post 33244 when you said:

Without our conscious freedom to choose our thoughts, words and actions,  we could never have created works of art, literature, philosophy, scientific discovery

Strange you should pick out these examples of human thought processes when there are many artists themselves who would certainly disagree with you by attaching a great deal of importance to the unconscious mind in their creations. Grayson Perry, for instance, talks about 'most ideas come into the corner of you eye as you're working, as a kind of spin-off of your thought processes."  Ray Bradbury  suggested that 'self consciousness is the enemy of all art."
Vangelis talked about composing the soundtrack to Chariots of Fire in this way:
"My main inspiration was the story itself. The rest I did instinctively, without thinking about anything else, other than to express my feelings with the technological means available."
The writer, Diana Athill wrote: "In the early 1960s, nine stories 'happened' to me. I say 'happened' because I did not decide to write them, but suddenly felt a peculiar sort of itch, which produced them."

As with so many words(e.g. freedom, choice) and so many ideas(e.g. determinism) you seek to distort their meanings in order to support your assertions. The idea that creativity must be 'driven by our God given freedom to consciously drive our own thought processes' seems to show a desire to ignore, or at the least be not aware, what many artists actually say about how they created their work.

[Enki]

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.

The only possible way that you could show that your freedom of choice idea is valid is to demonstrate that, given everything being exactly the same, you could have chosen differently. As you can't possibly do that, you are therefore not demonstrating that you could have chosen any differently than you did. No matter how many times you suggest it therefore, your idea of demonstrating this is hogwash.

[Alan Burns]

That's at least twice recently that you have suggested that creative, artistic works are a product of our conscious minds. The other one was in post 33244 when you said:

Strange you should pick out these examples of human thought processes when there are many artists themselves who would certainly disagree with you by attaching a great deal of importance to the unconscious mind in their creations. Grayson Perry, for instance, talks about 'most ideas come into the corner of you eye as you're working, as a kind of spin-off of your thought processes."  Ray Bradbury  suggested that 'self consciousness is the enemy of all art."
Vangelis talked about composing the soundtrack to Chariots of Fire in this way:
"My main inspiration was the story itself. The rest I did instinctively, without thinking about anything else, other than to express my feelings with the technological means available."
The writer, Diana Athill wrote: "In the early 1960s, nine stories 'happened' to me. I say 'happened' because I did not decide to write them, but suddenly felt a peculiar sort of itch, which produced them."

I am quite open to the possibility that works of art can be inspired by something outside our personal control.  But this would be an indication that the inspiration comes from some higher order of magnitude than what can be achieved by one's own conscious efforts.  It would be illogical to presume that such works of art were inspired by nothing but purposeless, unguided reactions to past events.

[Sebastian Toe]

.  It would be illogical to presume that such works of art were inspired by nothing but purposeless, unguided reactions to past events.

Just because we do not know how something works does not infer that it does not happen.

[Stranger]

But this would be an indication that the inspiration comes from some higher order of magnitude than what can be achieved by one's own conscious efforts.

What's that supposed to mean? A higher order of magnitude of what?

It would be illogical to presume that such works of art were inspired by nothing but purposeless, unguided reactions to past events.

First, they aren't unguided and purposeless; evolution explains the origin or purpose and brains that actively guide behaviour.

Second, just saying it's "illogical to presume"doesn't make it illogical, you need to provide an actual logical argument, not just incredulity. Unfortunately it increasingly looks as if you really don't know the difference between logic and baseless assertion and fallacies.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It would be illogical to presume that...

Yet another of your misguided tropes. You call something "illogical" when what you actually mean is, "I personally cannot imagine how". If you seriously think something to be illogical then you need to complete the step after assertion that you always miss out - demonstrating it.   

[Enki]

I am quite open to the possibility that works of art can be inspired by something outside our personal control.  But this would be an indication that the inspiration comes from some higher order of magnitude than what can be achieved by one's own conscious efforts.  It would be illogical to presume that such works of art were inspired by nothing but purposeless, unguided reactions to past events.

Twice recently you suggested that creative works are products of our conscious minds.

The point that I was making was that some artists clearly suggest that the unconscious/sub conscious mind has a major part to play in their creations. As there is no evidence that you can give that would indicate this 'higher order', that must remain a pure conjecture on your part.

However if you are now agreeing that it is possible(and, by the way, accepted by certain artists themselves, that their creative urge doesn't necessarily come from their conscious mind) then you were in error in saying that it was. May I suggest that you learn to check your facts in future rather than trying to fit them into your own particular mindset with all the assertions that it seems to encompass.

[Stranger]

The only possible way that you could show that your freedom of choice idea is valid is to demonstrate that, given everything being exactly the same, you could have chosen differently.

Except that would demonstrate randomness, not Alan's notion of "freedom". There can't possibly be any way to demonstrate Alan's idea of "freedom", even in principle, because it contradicts itself.

The idea of everything being exactly the same illustrates the contradiction perfectly. If everything is exactly the same, and he could choose differently, then there is at least part of the choice making process that has nothing at all to do with the choice or the mind of the person making it (random), if he couldn't choose differently, then the choice must be fully determined by what led up to it. Alan denies both possibilities.

[Alan Burns]

Twice recently you suggested that creative works are products of our conscious minds.

The point that I was making was that some artists clearly suggest that the unconscious/sub conscious mind has a major part to play in their creations. As there is no evidence that you can give that would indicate this 'higher order', that must remain a pure conjecture on your part.

However if you are now agreeing that it is possible(and, by the way, accepted by certain artists themselves, that their creative urge doesn't necessarily come from their conscious mind) then you were in error in saying that it was. May I suggest that you learn to check your facts in future rather than trying to fit them into your own particular mindset with all the assertions that it seems to encompass.

The point I was trying to make previously was that art is spiritually inspired.

[Alan Burns]

Except that would demonstrate randomness, not Alan's notion of "freedom". There can't possibly be any way to demonstrate Alan's idea of "freedom", even in principle, because it contradicts itself.

My concept of freedom is simply the freedom to consciously choose what to do.
Why do you consider this concept of freedom to be random?
A conscious choice is simply what it says.
I have the freedom to choose.
I know that my choice is not predetermined, otherwise there would be no choice.
There is no contradiction.
There is contradiction if I have no choice.
I simply have freedom to consciously choose between two or more feasible options.

[jeremyp]

The point I was trying to make previously was that art is spiritually inspired.

How do you define “spiritual”?

[Enki]

Except that would demonstrate randomness, not Alan's notion of "freedom". There can't possibly be any way to demonstrate Alan's idea of "freedom", even in principle, because it contradicts itself.

The idea of everything being exactly the same illustrates the contradiction perfectly. If everything is exactly the same, and he could choose differently, then there is at least part of the choice making process that has nothing at all to do with the choice or the mind of the person making it (random), if he couldn't choose differently, then the choice must be fully determined by what led up to it. Alan denies both possibilities.

As Alan has rejected the idea of  randomness in making choices, I'll happily accept that Stranger.

[Alan Burns]

How do you define “spiritual”?

Not physically predetermined, but spiritually determined.

[Enki]

The point I was trying to make previously was that art is spiritually inspired.

Tell that to Ray Bradbury who, sometime after writing Fahrenheit 451, realised that his central character was named after a paper manufacturer and another was named after a pencil maker. As he, himself, said:

What a sly thing my subconscious was to name them thus, and not to tell me!

[jeremyp]

Not physically predetermined, but spiritually determined.

You can’t define a word in terms of itself. Try again.

[jeremyp]

Not physically predetermined, but spiritually determined.

So determined one way or the other.

[Stranger]

I dunno, Alan, I've explained my position multiple times and you keep on insisting that you are reading and understanding what is being said to you, yet here we go all over again...

My concept of freedom is simply the freedom to consciously choose what to do.

I've never once disputed that, and it is entirely consistent with deterministic ("predetermined") minds.

Why do you consider this concept of freedom to be random?

I've never once said it was.

A conscious choice is simply what it says.
I have the freedom to choose.

I've never once disputed that, and it is entirely consistent with deterministic ("predetermined") minds.

I know that my choice is not predetermined...

How do you know?

...otherwise there would be no choice.

Pointless word games - you are trying to redefine the word "choice".

There is no contradiction.

Then actually address the argument that it is contradictory - it's been put to you often enough, FFS.

There is contradiction if I have no choice.

Word games again. You can do as you want, that is a choice. There not being a choice, according to your nonsensical definition, involves no contradiction. Your concept of choice is self-contradictory, for reasons that have been explained endlessly and you just ignore.

I simply have freedom to consciously choose between two or more feasible options.

I've never once disputed that, and it is entirely consistent with deterministic ("predetermined") minds.

Why do you never pay any attention to what is said to you? How many times do you need the same things explained? Why go on asking the same damn fool questions that have been answered time and time again? If you think the answers you get are wrong, why not say why you think they are wrong?

Why won't you actually engage with the arguments?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Seb,

How do you define “spiritual”?

Relax AB, I've got this one: magic.

[Alan Burns]

Why do you never pay any attention to what is said to you? How many times do you need the same things explained? Why go on asking the same damn fool questions that have been answered time and time again? If you think the answers you get are wrong, why not say why you think they are wrong?

But your explanations do not explain how our conscious freedom to make choices can be compatible with physically predetermined events.  These two posits are logically incompatible.
 
Do you honestly believe that this reply was entirely predetermined by every event which has occurred since the beginning of time?

If not, then something must have interacted with the chains of physically predetermined cause and effect in order to create this reply I am consciously composing.

I leave it to you to define what this "something" was.
And please do not refer back to quoting dictionary definitions which explain nothing.

[Sebastian Toe]

But your explanations do not explain how our conscious freedom to make choices can be compatible with physically predetermined events.  These two posits are logically incompatible.
 

Just because we do not know how something works does not infer that it does not happen.

[Sriram]

But your explanations do not explain how our conscious freedom to make choices can be compatible with physically predetermined events.  These two posits are logically incompatible.
 
Do you honestly believe that this reply was entirely predetermined by every event which has occurred since the beginning of time?

If not, then something must have interacted with the chains of physically predetermined cause and effect in order to create this reply I am consciously composing.

I leave it to you to define what this "something" was.
And please do not refer back to quoting dictionary definitions which explain nothing.

Alan,

I think it would be safe to say that some of our choices are predetermined by our memory, cultural predisposition and other aspects of our personality. However, there are some decisions that could be 'randomly' influenced.

Since everyone agrees that randomness may not be truly random, our 'random' decisions could be influenced by external factors that we know nothing about. We could thereby think of such 'random' influences as 'spiritual' or outside the known physical domain.

Cheers.

Sriram

[torridon]

My concept of freedom is simply the freedom to consciously choose what to do.
Why do you consider this concept of freedom to be random?

Because that is what freedom from cause and effect means.  It means random.  If there is no reason for a choice then it is random, this is what the words mean. I don't know how we can make this any simpler.

If I have a choice between tea and coffee I feel free in that not because my choice is free of logic or free of reason, I feel free because there are no external constraints on me infringing my self expression.  For a choice to be a meaningful choice, there has to be a reason for it otherwise it is a random event; that there is a reason for it places the moment of choice firmly within the logic of cause and effect.

[Sriram]

Because that is what freedom from cause and effect means.  It means random.  If there is no reason for a choice then it is random, this is what the words mean. I don't know how we can make this any simpler.

If I have a choice between tea and coffee I feel free in that not because my choice is free of logic or free of reason, I feel free because there are no external constraints on me infringing my self expression.  For a choice to be a meaningful choice, there has to be a reason for it otherwise it is a random event; that there is a reason for it places the moment of choice firmly within the logic of cause and effect.

How will you factor in the finding that our unconscious mind takes decisions seconds before our conscious mind is aware of it?