Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

Suppose your will was 'undetectable', then your motor neurons would be unable to detect your will and you would be paralysed.  That scenario doesn't cut it, you are just clutching at desperate straws.

No. 

What I am saying is that there could be other non detectable sources which can interact with the physical activity of my brain cells in order to consciously invoke whatever is needed to implement a choice.

[Gordon]

Such evidence certainly leads to a conclusion that specific, detectable brain activity is associated with consciously driven choices.  But the limiting factor in this is that we only have means to detect physical activity.

Even so, and within limitations, knowledge can be gained and further knowledge sought. This also involves developing methods to investigate phenomena, so if you must stress that there are limitations - and nobody will argue with you - you are still saying nothing of substance.

If there is also some none physical element involved in our conscious choices we have no means of detecting it.

Then you'd better get on with developing theories, hypotheses and methods for the 'non physical element' you presume instead of wittering on.

We are still left with the problem of how conscious awareness can exist within physical reactions.

Not really: current thinking is that conscious awareness is an emergent property of our biology, and you are again falling head-first into the fallacy of composition.

Using the term "complex" does not explain how conscious awareness can be produced by physical reactions of material elements.

That is where the evidence leads, Alan: so I suggest you give up on 'god' since your beliefs are clearly screwing up you reasoning abilities in that you keep repeating a mantra that is holed beneath the waterline.

True to form, your usual fallacies are evident.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

No.

What I am saying is that there could be other non detectable sources which can interact with the physical activity of my brain cells in order to consciously invoke whatever is needed to implement a choice.

No, you're not saying that there "could be" that at all. What you're actually saying is that there is that thing. "Could be" and "is" are very different things.

Stop lying.

[torridon]

No. 

What I am saying is that there could be other non detectable sources which can interact with the physical activity of my brain cells in order to consciously invoke whatever is needed to implement a choice.

That is just one more contradiction to add to your ever expanding portfolio of contradictions.  Something that is indetectable would not be able to interact with your brain cells.  That is what indetectable means.  You can't claim on the one hand that soul does not show up on scanning technology because it is immaterial and is therefore invisible to matter, and then on the other hand blithely assert that your motor neurons have no problem whatsoever interacting with it.  Your neurons are made of matter too just like scanners.

You really ought to read up on Mr Ockham, this is the sort of nonsense compounding that happens when you try to splice in spurious beliefs into reality.

[Sriram]

That is just one more contradiction to add to your ever expanding portfolio of contradictions.  Something that is indetectable would not be able to interact with your brain cells.  That is what indetectable means.  You can't claim on the one hand that soul does not show up on scanning technology because it is immaterial and is therefore invisible to matter, and then on the other hand blithely assert that your motor neurons have no problem whatsoever interacting with it.  Your neurons are made of matter too just like scanners.

You really ought to read up on Mr Ockham, this is the sort of nonsense compounding that happens when you try to splice in spurious beliefs into reality.

Ockham again...!!!  You guys tie yourselves into knots with Occam's razor...and the multiple fallacies you have created.  Face reality instead of sitting inside the cocoon of all these restrictions. 

If you want to simplify the world you have to get rid of Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, String, 11 dimensions and many other things.

[torridon]

But you do not know the true nature of conscious will, or how it works, so you can't just presume it is entirely driven by the past.  My will is certainly influenced by the past, but this influence exists within my present state conscious awareness, and there is much more involved in my conscious choice than memories of past events.

You're just dancing around trying hide the simple and obvious logic of will under a layer of spurious mystery.  If I prefer option A to option B there must be some derivation for that preference otherwise my defacto preference is just a random mental phenomenon.  You are simply fighting against logic Alan, that's a battle you can never win.

[torridon]

Ockham again...!!!  You guys tie yourselves into knots with Occam's razor...and the multiple fallacies you have created.  Face reality instead of sitting inside the cocoon of all these restrictions. 

If you want to simplify the world you have to get rid of Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, String, 11 dimensions and many other things.

Eh ?  Ockham is a good principle.

[Stranger]

But you do not know the true nature of conscious will, or how it works, so you can't just presume it is entirely driven by the past.

Yet again: it is just simple logic that any choice is ether driven entirely due to all the events that led to it or it isn't. If it isn't then some ingredient of the choice had to have nothing to do with anything that led to it, and is therefore random.

My will is certainly influenced by the past, but this influence exists within my present state conscious awareness...

The "present" is still totally meaningless in the context of the logic.

...and there is much more involved in my conscious choice than memories of past events.

Of course there is more to a choice than memories but that doesn't change the logic that you keep on ignoring.

[Stranger]

We are still left with the problem of how conscious awareness can exist within physical reactions. Using the term "complex" does not explain how conscious awareness can be produced by physical reactions of material elements.

Whereas, hand-waving, gibberish, self-contradiction, baseless assertions, incredulity, and magic are just fine as a substitute?

[Stranger]

Ockham again...!!!  You guys tie yourselves into knots with Occam's razor...and the multiple fallacies you have created.

Such as.....?

If you want to simplify the world you have to get rid of Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, String, 11 dimensions and many other things.

We already got that you can't distinguish between phenomena, hypotheses, and theories, now we can add Occam's razor to the list of things you don't understand...

[Sriram]

Eh ?  Ockham is a good principle.

Has it been proved (statistically) that the hypothesis with the least assumptions (the simplest) is always ultimately the correct one?   If this is not so...then what is the use of this principle? It could even be misleading.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Has it been proved (statistically) that the hypothesis with the least assumptions (the simplest) is always ultimately the correct one?   If this is not so...then what is the use of this principle? It could even be misleading.

Perhaps you should try looking up "Ockam's razor" before posting again?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Ockham again...!!!  You guys tie yourselves into knots with Occam's razor...

No "we guys" don't. It's a perfectly functional piece of abductive reasoning.

...and the multiple fallacies you have created.

"We" haven't "created" them at all. Rational thinkers over the ages have done that.

Face reality instead of sitting inside the cocoon of all these restrictions.

Your unqualified opinions are not "reality", at least other than in the subjective sense of a personal reality for you. 

If you want to simplify the world you have to get rid of Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, String, 11 dimensions and many other things.

Who wants to "simplify the world"?

[Alan Burns]

Perhaps you should try looking up "Ockam's razor" before posting again?

I have looked it up several times, and I am still mystified why it gets quoted so much when it is just a piece of idealist philosophy which exists in human minds rather than in the real world.

[Roses]

I have looked it up several times, and I am still mystified why it gets quoted so much when it is just a piece of idealist philosophy which exists in human minds rather than in the real world.

One could suggest that your posts on this topic are created by your mind, they are not reality.

[Alan Burns]

current thinking is that conscious awareness is an emergent property of our biology, and you are again falling head-first into the fallacy of composition.

So you put your faith in whatever can emerge from predetermined physical reactions.
I put my faith in the free spirit in my God given soul.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I have looked it up several times, and I am still mystified why it gets quoted so much when it is just a piece of idealist philosophy which exists in human minds rather than in the real world.

It gets quoted because you and Sriram keep eliding "X is possible" into "X therefore is" and hoping no-one notices. Yes, X may well be possible but when X as an explanation requires (many) more assumptions than Y as an explanation there's no good reason to prefer X over Y. For "X" see god, soul, aura, biofield etc.

Oh, and there's nothing "idealist" about it either. You apply the same principle all the time, albeit without realising it. You accept for example that apples fall from trees because of gravity (an explanation that requires some assumptions) but not that apples fall because invisible pixies pull them down with very small strings (an explanation that requires lots more assumptions). If not for Ockham's razor, why?       

[Roses]

Btw it is OCCAM not Ockam!

[Stranger]

I have looked it up several times, and I am still mystified why it gets quoted so much when it is just a piece of idealist philosophy which exists in human minds rather than in the real world.

It's actually pretty much a truism. The more assumptions (guesses) you make, the more opportunities there are for them to be wrong.

[bluehillside Retd.]

LR,

Btw it is OCCAM not Ockam!

There are various spellings:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

[Stranger]

So you put your faith in whatever can emerge from predetermined physical reactions.

It's got nothing to do with faith, it's what logic and the available evidence are telling us.

I put my faith in the free spirit in my God given soul.

aka an impossible, self-contradictory fantasy. The evidence here is that your faith is blind and does not allow you to even properly think about the inherent problems.

[Gordon]

So you put your faith in whatever can emerge from predetermined physical reactions.

That is what the evidence to date indicates: that you would prefer it were otherwise is neither here nor there. Moreover, since there doesn't seem to be a discipline of neuro-theology I'd suggest that you are, quite simply, wrong in your convictions about consciousness and 'souls' etc.

I put my faith in the free spirit in my God given soul.

I know, and I suspect that is where you are going wrong, Alan.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

So you put your faith in whatever can emerge from predetermined physical reactions.
I put my faith in the free spirit in my God given soul.

You're conflating the meaning of "faith" here: confidence in an answer based on reason and evidence (as in, "I have "faith" that my car will start") with unqualified guessing (as in, "I put my faith in the free spirit in my God given soul").

More cheating. 

[Alan Burns]

AB,

You're conflating the meaning of "faith" here: confidence in an answer based on reason and evidence (as in, "I have "faith" that my car will start") with unqualified guessing (as in, "I put my faith in the free spirit in my God given soul").

More cheating.

Without any evidence on how conscious awareness can exist within material reactions - it is down to faith, based on the presumption that there is nothing else involved but material reactions.

[Stranger]

Without any evidence on how conscious awareness can exist within material reactions - it is down to faith, based on the presumption that there is nothing else involved but material reactions.

Wrong. For reasons that have been explained to you endlessly, it is based on all the evidence we have. We can also dismiss your ideas, again for reasons that have been explained to you endless times, because they are illogical and self-contradictory.