Searching for GOD...

[Nearly Sane]

No.
It is evidence that a dog can react to data from image recognition by progranned instinct.No.
It is evidence that a dog can react to sounds in an instinctive pre programmed wayYou do not need supernatural powers to react to sensory data according to instinct or learnt experience.

However, conscious perception of sensory data requires no detectable reaction, just awareness.

Turns the assertatron up to 11

[Alan Burns]

Since when did science confine itself to material behaviour ?  Is the potential energy in a high altitude dam 'material' ?

I would class energy and material as different forms of the same thing, as in e=mc(squared)

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

No.
It is evidence that a dog can react to data from image recognition by progranned instinct.

No.
It is evidence that a dog can react to sounds in an instinctive pre programmed way

You do not need supernatural powers to react to sensory data according to instinct or learnt experience.

However, conscious perception of sensory data requires no detectable reaction, just awareness.

I wonder if there's some hitherto unknown principle of rhetoric that says that if you repeat stupid things often enough they somehow stop being stupid and so all the evidence that falsifies them can then be ignored?

Yes, that must be what you're hoping for. Well, that's all I can think he's doing anyway.

[Stranger]

No.
It is evidence that a dog can react to data from image recognition by programmed instinct.

No.
It is evidence that a dog can react to sounds in an instinctive pre programmed way

Your posts are evidence that you can react in an instinctive and preprogrammed way to challenges to your absurd, self-contradictory, blind faith beliefs...

 

[Stranger]

I would class energy and material as different forms of the same thing, as in e=mc(squared)

Then you'd be wrong. The formula relates mass to energy, neither of which are material. Mass and energy are properties of material or arrangements of material.

[torridon]

No.
It is evidence that a dog can react to data from image recognition by programmed instinct.No.
It is evidence that a dog can react to sounds in an instinctive pre programmed wayYou do not need supernatural powers to react to sensory data according to instinct or learnt experience.

However, conscious perception of sensory data requires no detectable reaction, just awareness.

Whether a dog reacts to visual perception with an instinctive response or with a learned response, it is still visual perception that is going on in the dog's mind.  Likewise with other modal perceptions.  All creatures with sense organs have conscious perception, what is your problem understanding that ?

[Walter]

AB,

I wonder if there's some hitherto unknown principle of rhetoric that says that if you repeat stupid things often enough they somehow stop being stupid and so all the evidence that falsifies them can then be ignored?

Yes, that must be what you're hoping for. Well, that's all I can think he's doing anyway.

blue,

the time has come . Walk away, just walk away !

[SusanDoris]

blue,

the time has come . Walk away, just walk away !

And leave AB to come along and think,'Ah, no-one here - I can have the last word.'
That would never do!

[Sriram]

Isn't QM fundamentally non deterministic?  Maybe the world gets created as we experience it....like a VR game. Donald Hoffman's ideas in the 'Nature of Reality' are relevant here.

[torridon]

Isn't QM fundamentally non deterministic?  Maybe the world gets created as we experience it....like a VR game. Donald Hoffman's ideas in the 'Nature of Reality' are relevant here.

Maybe QM is non-deterministic, but biological systems are, for all intents and purposes.  It's the principle of adequate determinism.  Without determinism holding true at classical levels, life would be impossible.

https://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/adequate_determinism.html

[Alan Burns]

Whether a dog reacts to visual perception with an instinctive response or with a learned response, it is still visual perception that is going on in the dog's mind.  Likewise with other modal perceptions.  All creatures with sense organs have conscious perception, what is your problem understanding that ?

You do not appear to understand that there is a fundamental difference between reaction and conscious perception.

[torridon]

You do not appear to understand that there is a fundamental difference between reaction and conscious perception.

Of course I understand that.  Reaction refers to your response to perception.  You have to become aware of things before you can respond to them.

[Alan Burns]

Your posts are evidence that you can react in an instinctive and preprogrammed way to challenges to your absurd, self-contradictory, blind faith beliefs...

 

But in your entirely predetermined materialistic scenario, your physically predetermined subconscious neural activity is accusing my physically predetermined subconscious neural activity of making absurd, self-contradictory, blind faith remarks.
Do you see the problem here?
How can there be any objective judgement in this?

[Alan Burns]

Of course I understand that.  Reaction refers to your response to perception.  You have to become aware of things before you can respond to them.

That is true in humans who have self awareness.
But programmed reaction occurs without conscious perception.
You do not even have a definition of what comprises conscious perception.

[Stranger]

But in your entirely predetermined materialistic scenario, your physically predetermined subconscious neural activity is accusing my physically predetermined subconscious neural activity of making absurd, self-contradictory, blind faith remarks.
Do you see the problem here?
How can there be any objective judgement in this?

• The logic of choice making that destroys your position has nothing to do with "materialistic", "physically predetermined", or conscious or subconscious.
  
  
• Your attempt to use language to encourage incredulity is not a substitute for reasoning and evidence.

To answer your questions: no, and by using reasoning and evidence.

You do not even have a definition of what comprises conscious perception.

Like you do.......     

[torridon]

That is true in humans who have self awareness.
But programmed reaction occurs without conscious perception.
You do not even have a definition of what comprises conscious perception.

Oh dear Alan, you've had this simplistic nonsense blown out of the water many times already, do you really never bother to read posts ? All higher creatures exhibit conscious perception, and this includes humans courtesy of our shared ancestry.  Perception is core mammalian brain function, it is not something that just evolved in humans in the last 200,000 years. It is higher levels of abstraction and cognitive function that characterise human minds in particular, not core functions like visual perception.  Please read and digest I don't want to have to explain this all over again in 6 months time.

[Roses]

Oh dear Alan, you've had this simplistic nonsense blown out of the water many times already, do you really never bother to read posts ? All higher creatures exhibit conscious perception, and this includes humans courtesy of our shared ancestry.  Perception is core mammalian brain function, it is not something that just evolved in humans in the last 200,000 years. It is higher levels of abstraction and cognitive function that characterise human minds in particular, not core functions like visual perception.  Please read and digest I don't want to have to explain this all over again in 6 months time.

Or even later on today!

[Sriram]

Maybe QM is non-deterministic, but biological systems are, for all intents and purposes.  It's the principle of adequate determinism.  Without determinism holding true at classical levels, life would be impossible.

https://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/adequate_determinism.html

If that actually happens (a non deterministic world giving rise to a deterministic world) explaining that would be impossible without bringing in Consciousness. 

[Stranger]

If that actually happens (a non deterministic world giving rise to a deterministic world) explaining that would be impossible without bringing in Consciousness.

Have you been taking baseless assertion lessons from Alan?

[torridon]

If that actually happens (a non deterministic world giving rise to a deterministic world) explaining that would be impossible without bringing in Consciousness.

No reason to imagine that to be true.  Consciousness is a high end emergent phenomenon of (deterministic) biological systems.

[Alan Burns]

You have to become aware of things before you can respond to them.

Yes, and this is how human free will works.  Our conscious perception allows us to choose how to react.  It is not automated.

[Alan Burns]

All higher creatures exhibit conscious perception

But as I have previously pointed out, externally observed reactions are not proof of conscious perception.  My new car can detect car headlights ahead, and automatically dip the beam.  It does not consciously perceive the car's headlights - it just reacts.

[torridon]

But as I have previously pointed out, externally observed reactions are not proof of conscious perception.  My new car can automatically detect car headlights ahead, and automatically dip the beam.  It does not consciously perceive the car's headlights - it just reacts.

No one imagines your car is conscious, and even self driving cars are not conscious.  No one is claiming such.  But other animals are not inaminate vehlcles, they are living things with minds and those with perceptual systems presumably do perception with them, what is so hard to understand ?

[Sriram]

No reason to imagine that to be true.  Consciousness is a high end emergent phenomenon of (deterministic) biological systems.

Try this.....watch till the end to what scientists like Michio Kaku have to say. Only about 17 minutes..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C5pq7W5yRM

[torridon]

Yes, and this is how human free will works.  Our conscious perception allows us to choose how to react.  It is not automated.

Neither is it fully automated in other creatures.  If I throw a stone at my greenhouse, I have a good idea what the outcome is going to be.  On the other hand I would be far less confident throwing a stone at a leopard, not knowing how it would react.  Predictability diminishes as complexity increases but this is predictability in practice, not predictability in principle. All biological creatures are immensely complex systems compared to the glass in my greenhouse and they will vary in their responses from individual to individual, and it is poor characterisation to label their responses 'automated'; to do so betrays an ignorance of the sophistication and complexity of minds and it is through their minds that all animals, humans included, respond to stimuli.