Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

Just to clarify, the newly enrobed Mayor of Trollheimen introduced the term "reductionist" a while ago. When asked repeatedly what he meant by it he used his standard evasion tactic of ignoring the question or of linking to a reference work that contains multiple definitions in the hope the question would go away. As ever, he never once managed to produce an answer to the question he was asked.

What he actually means by it by the way it is something like, "reduced from a personal faith belief I happen to have" but he'll never be honest enough just to say so. That to be "reductionist" you have to demonstrate something to be reduced from seems to pass him by entirely despite having it explained many times.

Plus ça change.   

[Dicky Underpants]

Just to clarify, the newly enrobed Mayor of Trollheimen introduced the term "reductionist" a while ago. When asked repeatedly what he meant by it he used his standard evasion tactic of ignoring the question or of linking to a reference work that contains multiple definitions in the hope the question would go away. As ever, he never once managed to produce an answer to the question he was asked.

What he actually means by it by the way it is something like, "reduced from a personal faith belief I happen to have" but he'll never be honest enough just to say so. That to be "reductionist" you have to demonstrate something to be reduced from seems to pass him by entirely despite having it explained many times.

Plus ça change.   

Indeed, the article does give multiple definitions, and subheadings within those definitions.
Just to recap, listed are:
Methodological reductionism
Ontological reductionism
and
Theory reductionism.
I sense that the subheading of the latter may be relevant here - religious reductionism.
Here's a quote:

Religious reductionism generally attempts to explain religion by explaining it in terms of nonreligious causes. A few examples of reductionistic explanations for the presence of religion are: that religion can be reduced to humanity's conceptions of right and wrong, that religion is fundamentally a primitive attempt at controlling our environments, that religion is a way to explain the existence of a physical world, and that religion confers an enhanced survivability for members of a group and so is reinforced by natural selection.[31] Anthropologists Edward Burnett Tylor and James George Frazer employed some religious reductionist arguments.[32] Sigmund Freud held that religion is nothing more than an illusion, or even a mental illness, and Marx claimed that religion is "the sigh of the oppressed," and the opium of the people providing only "the illusory happiness of the people," thus providing two influential examples of reductionistic views against the idea of religion.

I might add that the phrase "religion confers an enhanced survivability for members of a group and so is reinforced by natural selection" appears to be the view favoured by David Sloan Wilson, the subject of my thread "Evolution for everyone".

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Dicky,

Indeed, the article does give multiple definitions, and subheadings within those definitions.
Just to recap, listed are:
Methodological reductionism
Ontological reductionism
and
Theory reductionism.

Yup.

I sense that the subheading of the latter may be relevant here - religious reductionism.
Here's a quote:

Quote
Religious reductionism generally attempts to explain religion by explaining it in terms of nonreligious causes. A few examples of reductionistic explanations for the presence of religion are: that religion can be reduced to humanity's conceptions of right and wrong, that religion is fundamentally a primitive attempt at controlling our environments, that religion is a way to explain the existence of a physical world, and that religion confers an enhanced survivability for members of a group and so is reinforced by natural selection.[31] Anthropologists Edward Burnett Tylor and James George Frazer employed some religious reductionist arguments.[32] Sigmund Freud held that religion is nothing more than an illusion, or even a mental illness, and Marx claimed that religion is "the sigh of the oppressed," and the opium of the people providing only "the illusory happiness of the people," thus providing two influential examples of reductionistic views against the idea of religion.

I might add that the phrase "religion confers an enhanced survivability for members of a group and so is reinforced by natural selection" appears to be the view favoured by David Sloan Wilson, the subject of my thread "Evolution for everyone".

Yes, group adhesion may well be evolutionarily advantageous though that says nothing to the supposed truth of any religious claims, nor that it matters which religion it happens to be.   

[Maeght]

Any complex series of electro chemical reactions will still ultimately produce a definable reaction with no perceivable freedom to produce anything else.

Irrelevant to what I posted.

[torridon]

Any complex series of electro chemical reactions will still ultimately produce a definable reaction with no perceivable freedom to produce anything else.

A good job too.  The fact is, brains produce reactions which are ultimately consequential, meaningful.  The only alternative would be random outcomes.  You really ought to understand this by now.

[Alan Burns]

A good job too.  The fact is, brains produce reactions which are ultimately consequential, meaningful.  The only alternative would be random outcomes.  You really ought to understand this by now.

What I understand is this truly bizarre position:

You continue to demonstrate your ability to consciously choose meaningful words and phrases to back up your deduction that any choice you make has been predetermined before you are consciously aware of it. 

[Stranger]

What I understand is this truly bizarre position:

You continue to demonstrate your ability to consciously choose meaningful words and phrases to back up your deduction that any choice you make has been predetermined before you are consciously aware of it. 

The Alan-bot's done another memory wipe and reset...   

[torridon]

What I understand is this truly bizarre position:

You continue to demonstrate your ability to consciously choose meaningful words and phrases to back up your deduction that any choice you make has been predetermined before you are consciously aware of it. 

Now what's with the faux incredulity, like this is the first time you'd come across these ideas ?  I don't believe that my thoughts or my choices are truly random, that really would be bizarre.  No, I think they happen for a reason and it is those 'electro chemical reactions' that form the links from cause to effect, ensuring that minds do not produce random, irrelevant responses to stimuli.  If any part of that process was not fully deterministic, the end result would always be meaningless incomprehensible behaviours.  Minds aren't like that; minds produce relevant outcomes, not random ones.

[Alan Burns]

Now what's with the faux incredulity, like this is the first time you'd come across these ideas ?  I don't believe that my thoughts or my choices are truly random, that really would be bizarre.  No, I think they happen for a reason and it is those 'electro chemical reactions' that form the links from cause to effect, ensuring that minds do not produce random, irrelevant responses to stimuli.  If any part of that process was not fully deterministic, the end result would always be meaningless incomprehensible behaviours.  Minds aren't like that; minds produce relevant outcomes, not random ones.

And the outcome of your mind aptly demonstrates your capacity to make consciously driven choices and deductions.

Can you not see that your postulation of all your choices being entirely predetermined before you make them is truly absurd?  And your consciously driven efforts to try to defend your conclusion provides yet more evidence that it is obviously wrong.

Our demonstrable capacity to think, deduce, contemplate and come to conclusions offers substantial evidence that our minds can be driven by something other than physically predetermined chains of cause and effect or random events.

[Stranger]

And the outcome of your mind aptly demonstrates your capacity to make consciously driven choices and deductions.

Can you not see that your postulation of all your choices being entirely predetermined before you make them is truly absurd?  And your consciously driven efforts to try to defend your conclusion provides yet more evidence that it is obviously wrong.

Our demonstrable capacity to think, deduce, contemplate and come to conclusions offers substantial evidence that our minds can be driven by something other than physically predetermined chains of cause and effect or random events.

For the reasons that have been explained to you countless times before, this is utter drivel. Our abilities to think and make conscious choices is not evidence that those things are not operating entirely deterministically, with each stage being entirely because of the preceding reasons.

It is truly absurd and idiotic to claim that these abilities are evidence that this is not the case.

Also, for reasons that have been explained to you just as many times, to the extent things do not happen entirely because of the preceding reasons, they must happen for no reasons, which means randomly.

Are you just going to go on and on dishonestly pretending that all this hasn't been said countless times before and just repeating your self-contradictory nonsense?

How about giving up the silly pretence and actually engaging with the answers you've already been given many, many, many times? Is such basic honesty too much to expect from somebody blinded by faith?

[SusanDoris]

For the reasons that have been explained to you countless times before, this is utter drivel. Our abilities to think and make conscious choices is not evidence that those things are not operating entirely deterministically, with each stage being entirely because of the preceding reasons.

It is truly absurd and idiotic to claim that these abilities are evidence that this is not the case.

Also, for reasons that have been explained to you just as many times, to the extent things do not happen entirely because of the preceding reasons, they must happen for no reasons, which means randomly.

Are you just going to go on and on dishonestly pretending that all this hasn't been said countless times before and just repeating your self-contradictory nonsense?

How about giving up the silly pretence and actually engaging with the answers you've already been given many, many, many times? Is such basic honesty too much to expect from somebody blinded by faith?

Very firmly seconded.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

And the outcome of your mind aptly demonstrates your capacity to make consciously driven choices and deductions.

Can you not see that your postulation of all your choices being entirely predetermined before you make them is truly absurd?  And your consciously driven efforts to try to defend your conclusion provides yet more evidence that it is obviously wrong.

Our demonstrable capacity to think, deduce, contemplate and come to conclusions offers substantial evidence that our minds can be driven by something other than physically predetermined chains of cause and effect or random events.

What are you so frightened of that you must resolutely deny yourself the opportunity ever to learn something? You’ve posted this nonsense countless times, and countless times you’ve been given the explanation of why it’s nonsense. Yet rather than ever address the explanation you just repeat the same mistake over and over and over again. Why though? Seriously, why not just for once say something like, “OK, I’ve looked at your rebuttal and this is why I think it to be right/wrong”?

Instead you assert the equivalent of 2+2=5 and then just say it endlessly thereafter. It’s fundamentally dishonest behaviour, and it does you no credit. Of course at one level of abstraction we decide, we argue, we choose, we take responsibility for our actions etc because that’s the way we experience life. We also experience the Earth as flat, the blood in our veins as blue and objects as touching our fingers when we pick them up. And at a fairly shallow level of thinking all of these things are “true”. We’re also though capable of thinking and reasoning and harnessing evidence that gives us deeper, more profound truths that the immediate ones we leap to.

Perhaps if you’d finally try at least to be a bit more honest some of this at least would sink in. Fat chance though eh?       

[SusanDoris]

I think it must be just dreadful to live in such an unreal,  fantasy world. It wouldn'tbe so bad if AB gave up, walked away  and stopped his endless drivel, but he compounds the errors every time he posts.

[Alan Burns]

I think it must be just dreadful to live in such an unreal,  fantasy world. It wouldn'tbe so bad if AB gave up, walked away  and stopped his endless drivel, but he compounds the errors every time he posts.

And in this post you demonstrate your perception that I do these posts deliberately, of my own conscious choice.

This is the real world.
We all have the ability to choose.

Any denial of this reality is the fantasy.

[torridon]

And the outcome of your mind aptly demonstrates your capacity to make consciously driven choices and deductions.

Can you not see that your postulation of all your choices being entirely predetermined before you make them is truly absurd?  And your consciously driven efforts to try to defend your conclusion provides yet more evidence that it is obviously wrong.

Our demonstrable capacity to think, deduce, contemplate and come to conclusions offers substantial evidence that our minds can be driven by something other than physically predetermined chains of cause and effect or random events.

Yet again it seems only that you haven't read the post you claim to be responding to.  I have never claimed that our choices are 'predetermined' so stop misrepresenting me and actually engage with what is written.  The outcome of the deliberations of my mind is clear evidence that minds work on deterministic principals; I don't make random choices that are irrelevant to the issues that need resolution. On the contrary I make choices that are appropriate and fitting.  This is clear evidence that the fundamental principal of cause and effect is at work in the way minds have evolved. The ability to think is not inconsistent with determinism, the abilities to deliberate, contemplate, ruminate are entirely consistent with an underlying principal of determinism.  I can be confident of this just from my own experience of being a living thinking being - I do not have random thoughts, my contemplations are always in service of some or other desire, they are always consequential to something.  We are not random beings, there are always reasons for our thoughts and feelings.

[Gordon]

And in this post you demonstrate your perception that I do these posts deliberately, of my own conscious choice.

This is the real world.
We all have the ability to choose.

Any denial of this reality is the fantasy.

Why you always misrepresent what has been said to you beats me: it is as if this an essential part of your faith now, where denial is a tool to protect you from anything that exposes your thinking as being flawed or challenges your notions of 'God'.

Nobody denies you have the ability to make choices, but the choices you do make will involve antecedents and will, for the most part, be consequential to these since otherwise you'd be making random choices left, right and centre to the extent your life would be chaotic, and the predictability of your posting suggests that you are just as dependent on cause and effect as the rest of us.

Try choosing to believe that Dundee is a suburb of Paris and let us know how you get on. 

[SusanDoris]

Why you always misrepresent what has been said to you beats me: it is as if this an essential part of your faith now, where denial is a tool to protect you from anything that exposes your thinking as being flawed or challenges your notions of 'God'.

Nobody denies you have the ability to make choices, but the choices you do make will involve antecedents and will, for the most part, be consequential to these since otherwise you'd be making random choices left, right and centre to the extent your life would be chaotic, and the predictability of your posting suggests that you are just as dependent on cause and effect as the rest of us.

Try choosing to believe that Dundee is a suburb of Paris and let us know how you get on.

You know, I have long given up any idea of thinking of AB as a benign older gentleman with simply a different view of life. I find his closed minded attitude and deliberate - I can only assume it is deliberate - misrepresentation of what is written by most of the responders - as smug, pretentious and an example of considerable discourtesy.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You know, I have long given up any idea of thinking of AB as a benign older gentleman with simply a different view of life. I find his closed minded attitude and deliberate - I can only assume it is deliberate - misrepresentation of what is written by most of the responders - as smug, pretentious and an example of considerable discourtesy.

Now who does that possibly remind me of?

[Alan Burns]

Why you always misrepresent what has been said to you beats me: it is as if this an essential part of your faith now, where denial is a tool to protect you from anything that exposes your thinking as being flawed or challenges your notions of 'God'.

Nobody denies you have the ability to make choices, but the choices you do make will involve antecedents and will, for the most part, be consequential to these since otherwise you'd be making random choices left, right and centre to the extent your life would be chaotic, and the predictability of your posting suggests that you are just as dependent on cause and effect as the rest of us.

Try choosing to believe that Dundee is a suburb of Paris and let us know how you get on.

As I have previously said, we can't choose to deny what we know is true.
We can only make conscious choices between two or more feasible alternatives.

I am just pointing out the obvious absurdity of concluding that every conscious choice we make is entirely predetermined before we make it.

Complex combinations of physically predetermined events are incapable of making choices - they can only produce inevitable reactions.  A real conscious choice must involve more than physically predetermined events.

[Alan Burns]

You know, I have long given up any idea of thinking of AB as a benign older gentleman with simply a different view of life. I find his closed minded attitude and deliberate - I can only assume it is deliberate - misrepresentation of what is written by most of the responders - as smug, pretentious and an example of considerable discourtesy.

Your use of the word "deliberate" verifies that you believe I must be capable of making a conscious choice which has not been entirely predetermined by chains of cause and effect events beyond my control.

[Gordon]

As I have previously said, we can't choose to deny what we know is true.

What you think to be true, Alan, but when what you think is illogical or fallacious then your thinking is a poor guide.

We can only make conscious choices between two or more feasible alternatives.

Nobody is saying that you can choose what isn't feasible: funny that, that the available choices are available because of their antecedents - so I can choose to drink tomato juice in the next minute should I wish to because I know there is some in the fridge. There is also white wine in the fridge and I choose not to drink some in the next minute even though it is available to me, but should I want red wine in the next minute there is none so that option isn't available.

I am just pointing out the obvious absurdity of concluding that every conscious choice we make is entirely predetermined before we make it.

I think you use 'predetermined' as some sort of weasel-word to act as a buffer because you can't acknowledge that you are a hostage to determinism as much as the next guy, and that were you to acknowledge that it would remove the wriggle-room you've created in order to preserve your need for 'God'.
 

Complex combinations of physically predetermined events are incapable of making choices - they can only produce inevitable reactions.  A real conscious choice must involve more than physically predetermined events.

Cue yet more fallacious thinking.

[Stranger]

A real conscious choice must involve more than physically predetermined events.

Baseless assertion.

Your use of the word "deliberate" verifies that you believe I must be capable of making a conscious choice which has not been entirely predetermined by chains of cause and effect events beyond my control.

The word "deliberate" implies intention, which must come after contemplation. All of which means a non-random assessment of the options. Non-random means deterministic: each step follows logically from the proceeding ones.

It does not imply the logical impossibility of being not entirely due to reasons and yet involving no randomness.

Will you please stop the silly pretence that this hasn't already been addressed, and actually engage with the arguments? What's the point of your endless baseless assertions that have already been answered in ways that you just ignore?

[Sebastian Toe]

Your use of the word "deliberate" verifies that you believe I must be capable of making a conscious choice which has not been entirely predetermined by chains of cause and effect events beyond my control.

Your post demonstrates the workings of a biological brain making choices entirely under deterministic principles with no magic, logic free, fantasy ridden soul required.

[SusanDoris]

Your use of the word "deliberate" verifies that you believe I must be capable of making a conscious choice which has not been entirely predetermined by chains of cause and effect events beyond my control.

And that is yet another of your totally incorrect and, in my view, arrogant assumptions.

[torridon]

Your use of the word "deliberate" verifies that you believe I must be capable of making a conscious choice which has not been entirely predetermined by chains of cause and effect events beyond my control.

Whether it is 'deliberate' or not makes no difference.  We are still just exercising our preference whatever it is rather than choosing which preference to have.  Can you choose to prefer something you don't prefer just by doing it 'deliberately'? I don't believe Paris in in Germany, so do you think I could manage to believe that if I do it deliberately'?  It makes absolutely no difference.