Searching for GOD...

[Sriram]

If we are limited by 'natural human conditions' then what logically follows is that we do not know if there is a reality that is different or not, because, as you suggested,  'we cannot know'. Hence, if this is true, we can make no progress at all until we find the means of finding out.

Meanwhile I'll stick with science which seems to give us some ideas of 'reality' at least, and can be built on or modified as new evidence comes to light.

I am not saying anything against science. I am merely reinforcing the idea that human observation and perception have natural boundaries that we cannot surmount even if we want to.  We have discussed this before...and torridon brought it up above. The idea of maya (illusion) and Plato's shadows in the cave come to mind.

Acknowledging that fact does not discredit science.  But it does allow room for speculation on what these unknown realities could be  and how we could try to understand them. This is where subjective methods are considered more reliable than objective methods that once again rely on our limited senses.

[Alan Burns]

This sounds to me like an appeal to the god of the gaps.

No - the God of everything.
Science did not create itself

[Stranger]

I am not saying anything against science. I am merely reinforcing the idea that human observation and perception have natural boundaries that we cannot surmount even if we want to.

What boundaries are you thinking of?

We have discussed this before...and torridon brought it up above.

That was the point that science and reasoning can, and have, taken us beyond a simplistic interpretation of our subjective experience (although Alan seems to be having trouble understanding the point).

But it does allow room for speculation on what these unknown realities could be  and how we could try to understand them.

How are we going to understand them if we have boundaries we cannot surmount even if we want to? Make up your mind.

This is where subjective methods are considered more reliable than objective methods...

That's a joke, right?

[Stranger]

No - the God of everything.
Science did not create itself

Humans created science.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Stranger,

Humans created science.

And god(s).

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

I am not saying anything against science. I am merely reinforcing the idea that human observation and perception have natural boundaries that we cannot surmount even if we want to.  We have discussed this before...and torridon brought it up above. The idea of maya (illusion) and Plato's shadows in the cave come to mind.

It's more nuanced than that. You don’t know whether or or not there are such “natural boundaries” - maybe one day our species will know everything there is to know. The real problem though is a philosophical rather than an investigative one – regardless of what we may some day know, there’d be no way to eliminate the possibility that there’s something else we don’t know - the “unknown unknowns” problem in other words.

(Which problem would also by the way apply to an omniscient god - even if this god did know everything, how would it know that it knew everything?) 

Acknowledging that fact does not discredit science.

It’s not a fact it’s a conjecture, but ok.

But it does allow room for speculation on what these unknown realities could be  and how we could try to understand them.

Of course it does. Most of science has begun as speculation (or guesses as Richard Feynman famously said). The problem though comes when the religious in particular overreach from speculation to fact with no connecting reasoning between them. That’s what AB does – he just asserts “god”, “soul”. “spiritual” etc but has no method to verify these assertions (or even to tell us what they mean).
 

This is where subjective methods are considered more reliable than objective methods that once again rely on our limited senses.

No they’re not – or at least they’re not by people other than the thinking impaired. They’re precisely unreliable for epistemological purposes because there’s no way to distinguish them from just guessing.

[Alan Burns]

You're kidding right ?  Have you ever tried getting your head round String theory ?  If it is really simple, perhaps you'd like to explain the role of lipid polymorphism in cell membrane theory ?  If that was a doddle why not explain why the Procrustean method of entanglement concentration can be more efficient than the Schmidt projection method.  There is not a human alive with the cognitive resource to understand the range and depth of science.  Religious beliefs, on the other hand, are simple enough for most 10 year olds, which is part of the reason for their popularity.

But in looking into the minutia of scientific knowledge, you may well miss appreciating the wonder and awe of God's amazing creation.

[Alan Burns]

Humans created discovered science.

FIFY

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But in looking into the minutia of scientific knowledge, you may well miss the appreciating the wonder and awe of God's amazing creation.

But in looking into the minutiae of rainbows, you may well miss the appreciating the wonder and awe of leprechauns.

See, that's thing when you assert guesses and speculations as if they were facts without bothering to define them or demonstrate them actually to be facts - you can do it with anything else too.

[Stranger]

FIFY

I think you're confusing science with what it studies.

science   The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

[Alan Burns]

A person has to get to be a person before they can possibly be held responsible for anything. How can a person be held responsible for the type of person they are anyway - even if they were magicked into existence by a god?

Because they have freewill.

Is not a reflection of the reality we live in, as soon as you give it any serious thought at all. We do things for reasons and we are the people we are for reasons.

Reasons for what we do exist in our conscious awareness, so until you can define what our conscious awareness is and how it works, you cannot presume that the reasons we form in our minds are entirely predetermined.

[Gordon]

Because they have freewill.Reasons for what we do exist in our conscious awareness, so until you can define what our conscious awareness is and how it works, you cannot presume that the reasons we form in our minds are entirely predetermined.

I suspect for you 'conscious awareness' is just code for 'soul' - so hows about you do some actual 'defining': what is a soul and what its characteristics are would be a good place to start.

[Sebastian Toe]

...... so until you can define what our conscious awareness is and how it works,

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

[Alan Burns]

I suspect for you 'conscious awareness' is just code for 'soul' - so hows about you do some actual 'defining': what is a soul and what its characteristics are would be a good place to start.

I am sure I have said this before.
We have not the means to define what a spiritual entity is or how it works.
So we can only define the soul by what it does, which is to consciously perceive the information we have in our brain cells (not just react to it), and to provide the means to interact with these brain cells in order to invoke acts of will.

[Stranger]

A person has to get to be a person before they can possibly be held responsible for anything. How can a person be held responsible for the type of person they are anyway - even if they were magicked into existence by a god?

Because they have freewill.

Okay then, use your free will to become a different type of person for a couple of hours, let's say a homosexual atheist. Let me know how it goes.

Reasons for what we do exist in our conscious awareness, so until you can define what our conscious awareness is and how it works, you cannot presume that the reasons we form in our minds are entirely predetermined.

I (and others) have explained in detail how we can deduce that they are either entirely due to the past or they involve randomness. We don't need to know the details of how it works. It's just that if it isn't fully determined by the past, that means that it involves randomness - it's just another way of saying the same thing.

Come on, Alan, if you've really been reading and understand (as you claim) you could type out the arguments yourself by now. What part of them didn't you understand or disagreed with?

There is also a double standard: you are claiming to know that the reasons aren't fully determined by the past and aren't random (which is a contradiction) from exactly the same state of ignorance. The difference is that there are logical arguments that support my position.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I am sure I have said this before.
We have not the means to define what a spiritual entity is or how it works.
So we have no cogent reasons to think that it exists at all can only define the soul by what it does, which is to consciously perceive the information we have in our brain cells (not just react to it), and to provide the means to interact with these brain cells in order to invoke acts of will.

FIFY

[Gordon]

I am sure I have said this before.
We have not the means to define what a spiritual entity is or how it works.
So we can only define the soul by what it does, which is to consciously perceive the information we have in our brain cells (not just react to it), and to provide the means to interact with these brain cells in order to invoke acts of will.

In other words you don't have a clue regarding the definition of 'souls' or their mode of action, which is more than a tad ironic since you spend some of your time complaining to others about things lacking definition!

The bottom line here is that you're just making up what you'd like to be true.

[torridon]

I am sure I have said this before.
We have not the means to define what a spiritual entity is or how it works.
So we can only define the soul by what it does, which is to consciously perceive the information we have in our brain cells (not just react to it), and to provide the means to interact with these brain cells in order to invoke acts of will.

We don't have the means to define how mermaids work either; that is hardly evidence in their favour.  We don't have any evidence for souls, and all you have is a whole heap of fixed confusion about how life works.  A whole heap of confused thinking is not evidence for souls.

[Alan Burns]

Because they have freewill.


Okay then, use your free will to become a different type of person for a couple of hours, let's say a homosexual atheist. Let me know how it goes.

I (and others) have explained in detail how we can deduce that they are either entirely due to the past or they involve randomness. We don't need to know the details of how it works. It's just that if it isn't fully determined by the past, that means that it involves randomness - it's just another way of saying the same thing.

Come on, Alan, if you've really been reading and understand (as you claim) you could type out the arguments yourself by now. What part of them didn't you understand or disagreed with?

There is also a double standard: you are claiming to know that the reasons aren't fully determined by the past and aren't random (which is a contradiction) from exactly the same state of ignorance. The difference is that there are logical arguments that support my position.

But these logical arguments do not take away the obvious freedom we all have to make conscious choices which are determined by our conscious will  - which exists and acts in the present, not the past.  We are consciously aware of the past but not controlled by it.  How on earth could I keep choosing these words if they were all entirely predetermined by past events dating back to the beginning of time?

[torridon]

But these logical arguments do not take away the obvious freedom we all have to make conscious choices which are determined by our conscious will  - which exists and acts in the present, not the past.  We are consciously aware of the past but not controlled by it.  How on earth could I keep choosing these words if they were all entirely predetermined by past events dating back to the beginning of time?

There are reasons why you choose the words you do.  If that were not the case, then you would be speaking random gibberish.

Oh, hang on a minute ...

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But these logical arguments do not take away the obvious freedom we all have to make conscious choices which are determined by our conscious will  - which exists and acts in the present, not the past.

Except of course this “obvious freedom” is just a description of an experience – it tells you nothing at all about the explanation for that experience.

What we can discern though is that your concept of it is logically impossible, which is why you have to invent “spiritual” to get you off the hook of self-contradiction. And the problem with that is that “spiritual” turns out just to mean, “it’s magic innit”.

Then again you know this already don’t you because it’s been explained to you scores of times, only for you to vanish every time it’s been done.

Oh well. 
   

We are consciously aware of the past but not controlled by it.

Wrong. You’d need to demonstrate a stand alone “we” even to begin that argument – something you’ve never bothered even to try.

How on earth could I keep choosing these words if they were all entirely predetermined by past events dating back to the beginning of time?

Exactly as has been explained to you endless already only for you to keep pretending it hadn’t been done. Oh, that’s yet another argument from personal incredulity too by the way.

[Stranger]

But these logical arguments do not take away the obvious freedom we all have to make conscious choices which are determined by our conscious will...

No, but they do show that your assertions about how it isn't "predetermined" and yet involves no randomness, are self-contradictory nonsense.

...which exists and acts in the present, not the past.

Meaningless - for reasons you continue to totally ignore.

We are consciously aware of the past but not controlled by it.

That is just a way of saying that there is some randomness involved.

How on earth could I keep choosing these words if they were all entirely predetermined by past events dating back to the beginning of time?

Easily, as has been explained multiple times.

And you are still totally ignoring the logical arguments and indulging in the same mindless, bot-like repetition; what do you think you'll achieve? All you are doing is adding to the already copious evidence that you haven't thought about the problem at all, let alone deeply, and that you are too afraid to face the arguments directly.

[jeremyp]

But these logical arguments do not take away the obvious freedom we all have to make conscious choices which are determined by our conscious will  - which exists and acts in the present, not the past.  We are consciously aware of the past but not controlled by it.  How on earth could I keep choosing these words if they were all entirely predetermined by past events dating back to the beginning of time?

Can you give an example of a decision you have recently made that was not determined by past events?

Then you can tell us what did lead you to the choic you made.

[Enki]

I am not saying anything against science. I am merely reinforcing the idea that human observation and perception have natural boundaries that we cannot surmount even if we want to.  We have discussed this before...and torridon brought it up above. The idea of maya (illusion) and Plato's shadows in the cave come to mind.

Acknowledging that fact does not discredit science.  But it does allow room for speculation on what these unknown realities could be  and how we could try to understand them. This is where subjective methods are considered more reliable than objective methods that once again rely on our limited senses.

I didn't say you had anything against science. I simply followed the logic of what you said in post 33439. It was you who said our understanding was limited by 'natural human conditions'. This would have to include any subjective approaches to our understanding par excellence as subjectivity is part of our natural human condition.

If we are to progress in our understanding we need to have a method which is as near objective as we can find. In this way can we advance in our understanding by reducing the errors and obfuscations which might well be inherent in purely subjective methods. I am simply saying that the science is one such path, which, to date, seems to have had outstanding success. Speculation is all very well, but unless there are clear grounds for such speculation and methods for validating such speculation, then that is all it remains.

[Alan Burns]

In other words you don't have a clue regarding the definition of 'souls' or their mode of action, which is more than a tad ironic since you spend some of your time complaining to others about things lacking definition!

The bottom line here is that you're just making up what you'd like to be true.

I did not make up the concept of souls.
Try reading the history of human civilisation.