Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

AB,

It’s not “predeterrnined” as if there was some sort of deistic town planner that intended things to work out the way they have, it’s just determined (or “deterministic” if your prefer). Not sure why you think continued lying about this helps you, but you ought to stop doing it.
 
This is idiotic. At one level of reality my fingers are touching the keys as I type – after all, that’s the way it feels and that belief serves well enough for most practical purposes. Thus I may for example ask someone else to type something by touching the keys with their fingers, and they will know exactly what I mean by that. It’s a functionally useful belief.

Thanks to some understanding of physics though I also know that a deeper, more cogent level of understanding people’s fingers never actually touch the keys because of the repellent forces involved.

Neither “level” was "responsible" as such, but one level gives me a more robust understanding of the facts than the other. Your problem (though admittedly one from a crowded field of problems) is that you cannot or will not process the arguments that demonstrate that your functionally useful belief in an “I” that’s controlling things is undermined by a more robust understanding of what’s actually happening.         

Easily – just as you claim credit for typing by touching the keys. That you’re not actually touching the keys (or pulling the strings) makes no difference to that – the beliefs work well enough even though they fail as meaningful explanations. 

See above.

This’ll fall on deaf ears, but try this: when you fell in love with your wife did a separate "you" decide “yes, she’s the one” and then tell “your” body to go ahead and fall in love? Or when your sexual orientation emerged did a separate “you” weigh up the pros and cons of straight vs bi vs gay, pick an option and then tell “you” who to fancy?

Clearly not right? These “choices” weren’t choices at all were they – they emerged unbidden from your subconscious and there was no separate little you at the controls to select from menus of options. What then is so difficult for you about grasping that the same applies to anything else that feels like a choice (and that for most functional purposes is a choice) but that at an explanatory level cannot be a choice in the sense you intend at all?

Your attempted comparison with a finger pressing a key is totally irrelevant - because the issue is about causes.  There can be no possible illusion that it is a deliberate downward motion of your finger which causes the key to be depressed.  And there can be no possible illusion that your convoluted attempts to argue that "conscious control is not the cause of our actions" are caused by your conscious control of your fingers on the keys.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Your attempted comparison with a finger pressing a key is totally irrelevant - because the issue is about causes.  There can be no possible illusion that it is a deliberate downward motion of your finger which causes the key to be depressed.  And there can be no possible illusion that your convoluted attempts to argue that "conscious control is not the cause of our actions" are caused by your conscious control of your fingers on the keys.

Wrong again. It’s totally relevant because it illustrates that it’s perfectly possible to have functional realities – that you touch the keys, that there’s an independent little decision maker at the controls etc – that for day-to-day purposes work well enough, but that for explanatory purposes fail. The point here is that you cannot just assume that your experience of something is the explanation for it, no matter how much you wrap your dislike for that in logical fallacies.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

PS No comment then on your "decision" to fall in love with your wife rather than with her friend Madge, on your "decision" to be straight rather than gay etc then eh?

Funny that.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

PS No comment then on your "decision" to fall in love with your wife rather than with her friend Madge, on your "decision" to be straight rather than gay etc then eh?

Funny that.

My wife and I have total conviction that our marriage was an amazing answer to prayer on both our sides.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

My wife and I have total conviction that our marriage was an amazing answer to prayer on both our sides.

Given the reasoning ability of your efforts here I don't doubt it, but that avoids the question. When you met her did you make a conscious decision to fall in love by weighing up all the pros and cons ("not sure about the potential mother-in-law, but on the other hand Edna does make a good sandwich" etc), or did all that happen under the bonnet as it were so being in love was actually a realisation rather than a decision?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Given the reasoning ability of your efforts here I don't doubt it, but that avoids the question. When you met her did you make a conscious decision to fall in love by weighing up all the pros and cons ("not sure about the potential mother-in-law, but on the other hand Edna does make a good sandwich" etc), or did all that happen under the bonnet as it were so being in love was actually a realisation rather than a decision?

Actually it was an answer to the mother in laws prayers!
There are many other factors which I can't elaborate on which confirm that our marriage was an amazing answer to many prayers. It was only after our marriage that these answers became evident.

[torridon]

My thoughts and intentions are derived from my conscious human will.  If this was not the case, I would have no conscious control, because I can't exert control over past events.  This would render such words as control or manipulation to be meaningless.

Get this, words like 'control' are not so much meaningless, per se, but rather they have utility in their proper context.  They are useful to us.  It is helpful for instance for Mum to tell little Jimmy 'don't touch things' when they are in the china shop despite the fact that touch is a meaningless concept in the more fundamental description of reality we get from physics.  'Touch' is an emergent phenomenon, and likewise so is 'control', so when we observe that an elephant can control his trunk we are not claiming that elephants must have supernatural powers supervening over the laws of nature, we are describing an emergent behaviour or phenomenon that derives naturally from the underlying laws of nature.  So it is with us too.

[Sriram]

But you know very well that everything cannot be explained through known natural laws. What you often resort to as 'random' is an unknown aspect of reality that rears its head ever too often to make changes in the direction that evolution moves. It also rears its head very often to change  our individual lives.

What is supernatural about 'randomness'?

[Stranger]

But you know very well that everything cannot be explained through known natural laws.

While this is true it has little to do with anything else you have to say.

What you often resort to as 'random' is an unknown aspect of reality that rears its head ever too often to make changes in the direction that evolution moves.

There may or may not be actual randomness, quantum mechanics suggests that there might be, but there is definitely effective randomness in, for example, mutations. There is noting mysterious about it, it is the source of novelty that natural selection acts on.

It also rears its head very often to change  our individual lives.

No idea what you mean by that.

What is supernatural about 'randomness'?

Nothing.

[Stranger]

There can be no possible illusion that it is a deliberate downward motion of your finger which causes the key to be depressed.  And there can be no possible illusion that your convoluted attempts to argue that "conscious control is not the cause of our actions" are caused by your conscious control of your fingers on the keys.

There do seem to be two issues that are getting confused. There is a debate about the role of consciousness in choice making, for which there is evidence that it lags the actual choice but its exact role in how our minds work is still the subject of some debate.

However, regardless of what consciousness does or doesn't do, our choices must still be entirely due to all the events that led to them or not (and hence involve randomness). That is not a convoluted argument, it's a simple one. It is also perfectly reasonable to say that you are in control of your actions in any case - it is you that is doing the thinking and acting, consciously, unconsciously, and deterministically.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Actually it was an answer to the mother in laws prayers!
There are many other factors which I can't elaborate on which confirm that our marriage was an amazing answer to many prayers. It was only after our marriage that these answers became evident.

Yes, thinking that outcomes “confirm an amazing answer” or similar is a very common failure of thinking, and it’s got a name too: survivorship bias. It goes like this: “Just think, if Ethel’s heel hadn’t have fallen off causing her to be late for our first date under the clock at Waterloo Station I would never have met her friend Madge she sent along to explain, and Madge and I would never have gone for that coffee, we so would never have fallen in love and got married, so we would never have had little Freeman, Hardy and Willis, and if Freeman hadn’t said one day “Daddy, why don’t you buy a lottery ticket today?” I’d never have won that £10m, and I’d never have won that £10m… etc. Truly therefore Ethel’s heel falling off must have been pre-ordained”.

It’s beguiling stuff isn’t it, albeit entirely bogus. If Ethel’s heel hadn’t fallen off maybe you and she would have fallen in love and had children you love just as much as F, H & W, or maybe you’d have fallen in love with someone else later on (having never met Madge) and marvelled at the unlikeliness of liking the events that ensued from that meeting instead and so on. It’s called survivorship bias because you look just at the “survivors” – ie, the marriage you actually had – but never consider the countless other outcomes there could have been that would have seemed just as remarkable and just as unlikely to you had any of them happened instead.

It’s not nearly as romantic I’m afraid, but we live in an atomised world rather than a pre-determined one – it’s all sliding doors as the popular vernacular has it. Had the cobbler put one more nail in the heel it wouldn’t have failed and Ethel would have shown up and your children with Madge would never have existed etc. Marvelling after the events at the unlikeliness of their occurrence and deciding that they must therefore have been the answers to prayers or a divine plan is in other words akin to looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

Anyway, as all that will be as lost on you as any other piece of logic is lost on you I see in any case that you’ve dodged the question again: did you fall in love as a conscious “choice”, or was the sensation of being in love something you realised had happened? And as it was something you realised that had happened, can you see how apparent “decisions” that arise from the subconscious are not actually decisions at all in the sense you’re attempting?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Yes, thinking that outcomes “confirm an amazing answer” or similar is a very common failure of thinking, and it’s got a name too: survivorship bias. It goes like this: “Just think, if Ethel’s heel hadn’t have fallen off causing her to be late for our first date under the clock at Waterloo Station I would never have met her friend Madge she sent along to explain, and Madge and I would never have gone for that coffee, we so would never have fallen in love and got married, so we would never have had little Freeman, Hardy and Willis, and if Freeman hadn’t said one day “Daddy, why don’t you buy a lottery ticket today?” I’d never have won that £10m, and I’d never have won that £10m… etc. Truly therefore Ethel’s heel falling off must have been pre-ordained”.

It’s beguiling stuff isn’t it, albeit entirely bogus. If Ethel’s heel hadn’t fallen off maybe you and she would have fallen in love and had children you love just as much as F, H & W, or maybe you’d have fallen in love with someone else later on (having never met Madge) and marvelled at the unlikeliness of liking the events that ensued from that meeting instead and so on. It’s called survivorship bias because you look just at the “survivors” – ie, the marriage you actually had – but never consider the countless other outcomes there could have been that would have seemed just as remarkable and just as unlikely to you had any of them happened instead.

It’s not nearly as romantic I’m afraid, but we live in an atomised world rather than a pre-determined one – it’s all sliding doors as the popular vernacular has it. Had the cobbler put one more nail in the heel it wouldn’t have failed and Ethel would have shown up and your children with Madge would never have existed etc. Marvelling after the events at the unlikeliness of their occurrence and deciding that they must therefore have been the answers to prayers or a divine plan is in other words akin to looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

Anyway, as all that will be as lost on you as any other piece of logic is lost on you I see in any case that you’ve dodged the question again: did you fall in love as a conscious “choice”, or was the sensation of being in love something you realised had happened? And as it was something you realised that had happened, can you see how apparent “decisions” that arise from the subconscious are not actually decisions at all in the sense you’re attempting?

The more you contrive to choose words and phrases to justify your position the more evidence you provide for your conscious freedom to think it all up.  I cannot imagine how you can possibly presume that all this post was subconsciously chosen before you became aware of it.

And I honestly can't see the point you are trying to make in analysing my choice of bride.

[jeremyp]

I cannot imagine how you can possibly presume that all this post was subconsciously chosen before you became aware of it.

I'm fairly sure it was all consciously chosen, but Bluehillside's conscious thought processes are deterministic, like everybody else's.

Please do not equate "deterministic" and "subconscious".

[Stranger]

The more you contrive to choose words and phrases to justify your position the more evidence you provide for your conscious freedom to think it all up.

Dishonesty again. The facts everybody is offering explanations of are not evidence for your own explanation. And your explanation of "freedom" is also self-contradictory, and so there cannot possibly be any evidence for it.

[Gordon]

The more you contrive to choose words and phrases to justify your position the more evidence you provide for your conscious freedom to think it all up.  I cannot imagine how you can possibly presume that all this post was subconsciously chosen before you became aware of it.

Since you mention choosing words and phrases, Alan, to what extent to you consciously choose these? My impression of your position is that you in essence imagine you are scrolling through an internalised dictionary/thesaurus looking for words and phrases that you like, and that you consciously choose those you prefer to use from all those available to you (that you already know) on a case-by-case basis, which does seem laborious, such in having to consciously decide to skip past words like 'pomegranate' when discussing, say, social policy.

However, that isn't my experience, since as I sit here writing this and deciding what to type I seem to be already thinking internally using language without first deciding what words and phrases and I should use in thinking about what I think might type, and then there are the words and phrases I might use to think about thinking about what I think I should type - and so on: can you see the problem?

Luckily it seems that when I am consciously thinking about what to type the language I am most likely to use is determined by both the context of what I am addressing plus my personal traits as regards language usage - why it is almost as if my brain has already selected the forms of language I am most likely to require.

[Outrider]

Science doesn't seem to have a problem proposing hypotheses about 11 dimensions, Strings, parallel universes, time travel, Dark Matter  etc. without any evidence what so ever....

On the contrary, science differentiates between supposition and hypothesis - there are currently hypotheses regarding Dark Matter, because there are suggested experiments which might confirm that particular idea, in parallel with suppositions about it where there isn't a clear understanding of how it might be tested.  Some of those experiments are beyond our current technology, but that doesn't invalidate the hypothesis, it just means we might have to wait a while.

Well...you really must try to see the videos  of Sam Parnia on NDE's...and the Nature of Reality etc., that I have lined to other threads.  Without that how would you even know what some researchers and doctors think about such matters?!

Because I can read?  Parnia's work isn't exactly unknown, he's been in documentaries on the BBC about it - when his big claim came out in 2001 it was widely criticised as being overreaching even without considering the painfully small sample size.  He's working on bigger studies, which is good, and it's possible that he might find something, but on the evidence he's supplied so far there's no reason to accept his supposition that there's an element of consciousness that resides outside of brain activity.

O.

[Outrider]

I gave a link recently which cast some doubt about the validity and accuracy of these investigations.

And yet it remains the prevailing paradigm in the scientific community.

But no such investigation can identify the ultimate cause of thought processes.

Why not?  What makes thought processes intrinsically different to any other complex phenomenon, like weather?  It's possible they're qualitatively different, but you can't presume that going in without a justification.

If such causes come from the conscious will of the human soul it would imply that the soul invokes whatever is needed to implement an act of will.

And if they come from giant drunken fairies it would imply that Harry Potter can save us all, but we don't draw conclusions based on what might be possible, we follow the available evidence.  If you want to suggest consciousness is external to brain, you need to show reason, or mechanism, or at the very least inexplicable mental activity under the current model.

More than that, though, if you want to establish your chosen understanding, you also need to explain the apparent logical contradiction of something being both free and will - you've so far apparently been unable to do that.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The more you contrive to choose words and phrases to justify your position the more evidence you provide for your conscious freedom to think it all up.  I cannot imagine how you can possibly presume that all this post was subconsciously chosen before you became aware of it.

That you cannot imagine something tells you something about the limits of your imagination perhaps but nothing about whether or not it’s true (that’s called the argument from personal incredulity – yet another piece of fallacious thinking). Moreover, the fact that people can construct an argument that falsifies your belief cannot itself be evidence for that belief when you just ignore the content of the argument. In short, “hah, see – the fact that you can tell me why I’m wrong must mean I’m right” is painfully inept.     

And I honestly can't see the point you are trying to make in analysing my choice of bride.

As I predicted, you haven’t understood a word of it. I was merely explaining survivorship bias to you – try looking it up so see where you’ve gone wrong. The point though was rather that falling in love is an example of something your subconscious does and that you realise has happened rather than decide will happen. You didn’t produce a spreadsheet of desirable vs undesirable characteristics, rate the candidates accordingly and then decide which one to fall in love with did you. No of course you didn’t – what you actually did was wake up one morning and realise that you were in love. Where then do you suppose that feeling came from if not from your subconscious?

[ippy]

AB,

That you cannot imagine something tells you something about the limits of your imagination perhaps but nothing about whether or not it’s true (that’s called the argument from personal incredulity – yet another piece of fallacious thinking). Moreover, the fact that people can construct an argument that falsifies your belief cannot itself be evidence for that belief when you just ignore the content of the argument. In short, “hah, see – the fact that you can tell me why I’m wrong must mean I’m right” is painfully inept.     

As I predicted, you haven’t understood a word of it. I was merely explaining survivorship bias to you – try looking it up so see where you’ve gone wrong. The point though was rather that falling in love is an example of something your subconscious does and that you realise has happened rather than decide will happen. You didn’t produce a spreadsheet of desirable vs undesirable characteristics, rate the candidates accordingly and then decide which one to fall in love with did you. No of course you didn’t – what you actually did was wake up one morning and realise that you were in love. Where then do you suppose that feeling came from if not from your subconscious?

I would have thought pheromones would figure to some extent with A B's choice, I believe there's evidence to support this effect we're all supposed to be affected by these chemicals in some way and I think this effect would be experienced by the reaction of our subconscious grey stuff.

Regards, ippy.

[Alan Burns]

That you cannot imagine something tells you something about the limits of your imagination perhaps but nothing about whether or not it’s true (that’s called the argument from personal incredulity – yet another piece of fallacious thinking). Moreover, the fact that people can construct an argument that falsifies your belief cannot itself be evidence for that belief when you just ignore the content of the argument. In short, “hah, see – the fact that you can tell me why I’m wrong must mean I’m right” is painfully inept.     

The content of the argument is totally irrelevant to the basic truth behind your ability to consciously construct an argument.  My contention is that for any argument to have credibility, it must be verifiable by some form of consciously driven interaction.  Without such interaction it becomes just a meaningless consequence of brain chemistry driven by unavoidable physical reactions.

[Sebastian Toe]

The more you contrive to choose words and phrases to justify your position the more evidence you provide for your conscious freedom to think it all up.  I cannot imagine how you can possibly presume that all this post was subconsciously chosen before you became aware of it.

And I honestly can't see the point you are trying to make in analysing my choice of bride.

...and yet another response, clearly demonstrating a biological brain working under deterministic principles.
No soul required.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The content of the argument is totally irrelevant to the basic truth behind your ability to consciously construct an argument.  My contention is that for any argument to have credibility, it must be verifiable by some form of consciously driven interaction.  Without such interaction it becomes just a meaningless consequence of brain chemistry driven by unavoidable physical reactions.

Can you genuinely not grasp the stupidity of just ignoring an argument that falsifies your claim by endlessly repeating the same basic mistake that the fact of making it at all somehow validates that claim?

Seriously though?

Oh, and no news then on the fact that you realise you fall in love rather than reach that "decision" as if you’re some sort of agency independent of your subconscious?

Funny that.

[Stranger]

The content of the argument is totally irrelevant to the basic truth behind your ability to consciously construct an argument.

Nobody is disputing anything that humans can do - your continued attempts to portray them as evidence for your, self-contradictory, explanations for them are just silly.

My contention is that for any argument to have credibility, it must be verifiable by some form of consciously driven interaction.  Without such interaction it becomes just a meaningless consequence of brain chemistry driven by unavoidable physical reactions.

False dichotomy, emotive language, misrepresentation, and personal incredulity. How about trying logic and/or evidence, just for a change?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Can you genuinely not grasp the stupidity of just ignoring an argument that falsifies your claim by endlessly repeating the same basic mistake that the fact of making it at all somehow validates that claim?

Seriously though?

Oh, and no news then on the fact that you realise you fall in love rather than reach that "decision" as if you’re some sort of agency independent of your subconscious?

Funny that.

Can you not grasp the simple truth that conscious manipulation of what goes on inside your head is essential in order to construct a meaningful argument.  Any presumption that such arguments can just emerge from predetermined physical reactions is totally implausible - despite your constant plea that it is what the limited evidence suggests.

And love is not just a state of mind.  It is backed up by conscious choices in how to show that love by what we do or say.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Can you not grasp the simple truth that conscious manipulation of what goes on inside your head is essential in order to construct a meaningful argument.  Any presumption that such arguments can just emerge from predetermined physical reactions is totally implausible - despite your constant plea that it is what the limited evidence suggests.

Except of course that you make the same mistake here that you always make: “the simple truth” as you put it isn’t an argued for proposition, it’s just a faith claim – and moreover one that’s unsupported by any evidence, contradicted by the evidence we do have and still LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. And your only escape from that logical impossibility is to invent a little man at the controls you call “soul” that by some mysterious magical process isn’t constrained by logic at all. And that, as even you must be able to realise, is no escape at all. 

And love is not just a state of mind.  It is backed up by conscious choices in how to show that love by what we do or say.

Of course love is a state of mind. What else do you think it is – a state of knees? If you feel like you’re in love, then you’re in love. There isn’t some sort of phlogiston-like love just floating around somewhere that “you” can “decide” to take a piece of when you want to do so. And in any case you’ve just evaded the point once again which is that the sensation of being in love emerges from your subconscious such that you become aware of it. You don’t just sit down one day and decide whether or not to be in love with that comely young thing you’ve spotted at the local hop.

And when finally you grasp that love is a thing that happens unbidden, then perhaps you’ll finally see why there’s no barrier to everything else you feel like you’ve chosen emerging the same way too.   

But the problem for you with actual thinking is, as we both know, that you’re terrified of what it might reveal so instead you’re determined to keep that box forever closed. Never, ever address the argument that shows your “if you said it, I must be right” nonsense to be false and you can stay wrapped in the warm comfort blanket of your unqualified faith beliefs.

What does that say about you do you think?