Searching for GOD...

[Outrider]

When I first speculated on the soul being the source of human free will, I did feel for many years that I was out on a limb, though I did not actively seek confirmation or denial to any great extent.

I then came across a full chapter on the subject in CS Lewis' book "Miracles" in which he went into much detail to reach a conclusion that a consciously invoked choice was a miraculous event because there could be no feasible material explanation.

Lewis' lack of sufficient information - it's difficult to allege a lack of imagination with the 'Alice' books in his output - isn't evidence FOR anything, it is at best a lack of validation of a proposition.

Now with the use of Google it is an easy matter to search for "souls and free will" to discover that there are many people who have reached the same conclusions as myself.

Have they done so on the same false dichotomy premise? 'I can't imagine material cause, therefore God' is not a valid argument - in the absence of evidence confirming one possibility, the response is 'I still don't know, I'll keep looking'.

And on the relationship with neurological matters, you can google "quantum indeterminacy and free will" to discover arguments for and against the possibility of indeterminate quantum events being the window for conscious freedom to interact within the otherwise physically predetermined material brain.

And unless something's significantly changed in the last few days, they'll all be Deepak Chopra levels of either failure to grasp the concept of quantum mechanics, or vast overreach from the quantum to the macroscopic - if you've a specific example I'm happy to look and face the possibility of being proven wrong.

Having said all this, I must say that the vast majority of people I meet consider their freedom to consciously choose as being a fundamental reality with no need to investigate how it works.

It's an assumption that works on a day to day basis - even thinking, academically, that it's not the case I still operate on a daily basis as though it were because our entire culture (maybe all cultures?) is predicated on the assumption that it is; personal responsibility, freedom of the individual, crime and punishment, high- and low-end supermarkets, multiple brands of... everything.

Like people's assumption, though, that gravity is a force, it's not supported by the evidence, and when it's taken out of the everyday examples it starts to break down, starts to no longer be a useful 'shorthand'.

O.

[SteveH]

! agree with Alan above. We know our wills are free, and there's an end on't.

[Outrider]

! agree with Alan above. We know our wills are free, and there's an end on't.

Which 'we' is this, Batman?

O.

[SteveH]

Which 'we' is this, Batman?

O.

You're being silly now.

[Outrider]

You're being silly now.

You're attempting a 'revealed wisdom' argument to validate free will, and I'm being silly?  Did you just 'feel' that, too?

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

SteveH,

! agree with Alan above. We know our wills are free, and there's an end on't.

Are you serious, especially as only a few posts ago you said:

You should only believe in anything if there's good eviidence or logical arguments for it.

What “good evidence or logical argument” do you think there is for AB’s logically impossible and entirely evidence-free assertions about the way free will happens to feel as an experience also therefore being the correct explanation for what that experience of free will actually is?

[Alan Burns]

You're attempting a 'revealed wisdom' argument to validate free will, and I'm being silly?  Did you just 'feel' that, too?

O.

But it is not just a feeling is it?
Our ability to consciously contemplate the reality of free will is not just a feeling - it is a reality which effectively confirms our freedom to think about such things.

[Outrider]

But it is not just a feeling is it?

Yes, it's a feeling. You feel that you're free willed, and that's enough for you to presume that you are free willed.

Our ability to consciously contemplate the reality of free will is not just a feeling - it is a reality which effectively confirms our freedom to think about such things.

Except that if we're inextricably bound to feel free, even though we aren't, your argument falls over.  The fact that we have consciousness doesn't inevitable lead to the conclusion of freedom, especially if we have evidence that consciousness lags behind physical measurable processes which are strongly correlated to that conscious activity.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But it is not just a feeling is it?

Yes it is, for the reasons that have been explained to you endlessly and that you always just ignore.

Our ability to consciously contemplate the reality of free will is not just a feeling - it is a reality which effectively confirms our freedom to think about such things.

The feeling is a reality, but just one abstraction of reality and a fairly shallow one at that. It's an emergent property of the underlying vastly complex neural processing of brains. And that vastly complex processing is itself an emergent property of biology. And that biology is itself an emergent property of...

...and so on and so on through chemistry and physics, all the way down so far as we can tell to the quantum field level. And whether that is an emergent property of something else or a fundamental property of the universe is unknown, at least for now.

But of course you'll ignore this just like you you ignore everything else so as to keep wailing your version of, "the earth is flat. the earth is flat" over and over again in the doomed hope that one day someone somewhere will be daft enough to believe you.

[Nearly Sane]

! agree with Alan above. We know our wills are free, and there's an end on't.

Pity neither you, nor Alan,  nor Johnson are being logically coherent here.

[Nearly Sane]

But it is not just a feeling is it?
Our ability to consciously contemplate the reality of free will is not just a feeling - it is a reality which effectively confirms our freedom to think about such things.

  Apart from your position being logically incoherent

[Stranger]

But it is not just a feeling is it?
Our ability to consciously contemplate the reality of free will is not just a feeling - it is a reality which effectively confirms our freedom to think about such things.

Nobody is denying our freedom to think about things - that is entirely consistent with us being deterministic systems and has nothing to do with your impossible, self-contradictory version of "freedom". Once again you've just repeating your illogical, blind faith dogma, ignored the logical counterarguments, and misrepresented what others are claiming to falsely claim that your view is confirmed by what we can do.

You need to address your level of intellectual engagement and/or your basic honesty.

[Stranger]

! agree with Alan above. We know our wills are free, and there's an end on't.

Except we don't and couldn't possibly know they are free in the sense Alan means because his definition is inherently incoherent and self-contradictory. Not only can we not experience it, it's impossible to even imagine.

[torridon]

When I first speculated on the soul being the source of human free will, I did feel for many years that I was out on a limb, though I did not actively seek confirmation or denial to any great extent.

I then came across a full chapter on the subject in CS Lewis' book "Miracles" in which he went into much detail to reach a conclusion that a consciously invoked choice was a miraculous event because there could be no feasible material explanation.

For 'miraculous', read 'incomprehensible'.

You haven't managed to explain how a conscious agent could make a choice free of determinant influences without being random.  Are you saying Chesterton managed that ?  If so, why haven't you been able to reproduce his reasoning here ?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Yes it is, for the reasons that have been explained to you endlessly and that you always just ignore.

The feeling is a reality, but just one abstraction of reality and a fairly shallow one at that. It's an emergent property of the underlying vastly complex neural processing of brains. And that vastly complex processing is itself an emergent property of biology. And that biology is itself an emergent property of...

...and so on and so on through chemistry and physics, all the way down so far as we can tell to the quantum field level. And whether that is an emergent property of something else or a fundamental property of the universe is unknown, at least for now.

But of course you'll ignore this just like you you ignore everything else so as to keep wailing your version of, "the earth is flat. the earth is flat" over and over again in the doomed hope that one day someone somewhere will be daft enough to believe you.

The stark truth is that it is "you" that has consciously chosen to think up all these reasons to consciously believe that "you" are nothing more than something emerging from a set of predetermined physical reactions.  In this you vastly underestimate what comprises "you" and vastly overestimate what can be achieved by physical reactions alone.  Your comparison with a belief in a flat earth is more applicable to your short sighted logic than it is to mine.  You constantly fail to appreciate that there is more, much more to the reality of human consciousness and free will than it being just an uncontrollable emergent property of material reactions.

[Outrider]

The stark truth is that it is "you" that has consciously chosen to think up all these reasons to consciously believe that "you" are nothing more than something emerging from a set of predetermined physical reactions.

He asserted, without basis...

In this you vastly underestimate what comprises "you" and vastly overestimate what can be achieved by physical reactions alone.

If there is something 'more' to us than brain activity, demonstrate it.  How can we detect it, where is the uncaused part of the phenomena that relies on something 'beyond'?  You keep suggesting that there is something more, but you don't explain how it interacts, you don't show what in the current model requires something more to explain it, just that you can't imagine that's how it works - that's an argument from incredulity, and it's as likely to say something about you as it is about the situation.

Your comparison with a belief in a flat earth is more applicable to your short sighted logic than it is to mine.

Logic can't be 'short-sighted' - it's either valid or it's not, that it's beauty and its limitation.

You constantly fail to appreciate that there is more, much more to the reality of human consciousness and free will than it being just an uncontrollable emergent property of material reactions.

And you keep failing to demonstrate your claim that there is anything more... in the absence of a justification for the claim, it can be dismissed without a justification as well.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The stark truth is that it is "you" that has consciously chosen to think up all these reasons to consciously believe that "you" are nothing more than something emerging from a set of predetermined physical reactions.  In this you vastly underestimate what comprises "you" and vastly overestimate what can be achieved by physical reactions alone.  Your comparison with a belief in a flat earth is more applicable to your short sighted logic than it is to mine.  You constantly fail to appreciate that there is more, much more to the reality of human consciousness and free will than it being just an uncontrollable emergent property of material reactions.

No, the stark truth is that you refuse absolutely ever to address the arguments that show this to be the bollocks that it is in order to keep repeating the same mindless and logically impossible mantras over and over again just as a someone else might cry “the earth is flat, the earth is flat” while standing in front of a picture of it taken from the moon. You cannot just call the logic that falsifies you “short-sighted” if you never bother to engage with it.

I’m sorry, but if you insist on putting your fingers in your ears and going “la la la, not listening” then neither I nor anyone else can help you.

[SusanDoris]

AB

In my opinion yourtotal lack of any response to the questions raised by those who think for themselves, let alone a rational response, is an absolute disgrace.

Your latest assertions a few posts above this one is  yet another of your complete failures to make any effort to provide an objective fact.

[Alan Burns]

You haven't managed to explain how a conscious agent could make a choice free of determinant influences without being random.  Are you saying Chesterton managed that ?  If so, why haven't you been able to reproduce his reasoning here ?

You have answered your own question here by the word "influences".  Our conscious choices are influenced, not determined by the past.  The present state of our conscious awareness allows us to consciously choose what to invoke from all the influences which exist at the time we make the choice.  You have to think beyond the limitations within the mechanistic world of physical chains of cause and effect to appreciate the enormous potential and capability which exist in our present state of human conscious awareness.

[Outrider]

You have answered your own question here by the word "influences".  Our conscious choices are influenced, not determined by the past.  The present state of our conscious awareness allows us to consciously choose what to invoke from all the influences which exist at the time we make the choice.

How? What is the flow of that conscious choice-making process? What elements of it are determined by prior events, and when they are stripped away, what is left? And, how do you know?

You have to think beyond the limitations within the mechanistic world of physical chains of cause and effect to appreciate the enormous potential and capability which exist in our present state of human conscious awareness.

You have explain why we should think there is something more than cause and effect at play.

O.

[Gordon]

The stark truth is that it is "you" that has consciously chosen to think up all these reasons to consciously believe that "you" are nothing more than something emerging from a set of predetermined physical reactions.  In this you vastly underestimate what comprises "you" and vastly overestimate what can be achieved by physical reactions alone.  Your comparison with a belief in a flat earth is more applicable to your short sighted logic than it is to mine.  You constantly fail to appreciate that there is more, much more to the reality of human consciousness and free will than it being just an uncontrollable emergent property of material reactions.

The fallacy-fest continues: and leading the field we have the fallacies of ignorance, incredulity and consequences - congratulations, you've invented fallacy-macrame.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Hi BHS

“Determine” is too high a bar for the default position of non-belief – “act on the basis that they’re not real” is good enough (burden of proof again).

This has been raised before but I'll raise it again - in every day life I often do not act on a default position of non-belief for practical reasons and also because if I did my life would not work out very well for me. My goal is to try to maximise my happiness within the constraints of the law along  with whatever dose I can muster of Kant's categorical imperative to do my duty to try to avoid the collapse of civilisation  and part of my perception of what may maximise my happiness is not acting on a default position of non-belief in certain situations. My perception of the concept of God is one of those situation.
 

I thought that your position was that advertising doesn’t work (tee hee – just kidding).

    Umm...occasionally my position is to adopt the default of non-belief until I see some proof.

I don’t think that’s right. Ask any theist, “what do you mean by “God” exactly?” and try take to make sense of the answer. Most will dodge it and give you his CV instead (“God is the being that did the following…”) or will list the omnis maybe but will never tell you what this god actually is, how he functions etc. When one of them tries the "he's the ground of all being beyond all understanding" or some such greetings card guff frankly I want reach for the sick bag.
Or a gun ; - ) 

Yes but the problem is that people can only communicate the concept within the limitations of language. We may individually have a sense of what we think God is without being able to capture the perceptions we feel through the medium of language. Which is perhaps why there are so many conflicting stories to try and illustrate something that cannot be defined. Like ethics and political policies, religious ideas are diverse and depending on who you speak to can be subject to change and refinement  from one week to the next or espoused with dogmatic adherence or a variation of the two. Different parts of the concept appeal to different people. Bit like Brexit - some support/oppose the concept because they want to keep the foreigners out who dilute culture or change society's culture by getting more diverse people in, some want to protect our borders and try to keep foreign criminals out as we're barely coping with local criminals; some want to shore up power and influence or share it for economic gains , some want to protect people from themselves, some want more accountability and transparency, some hide from it, some want an extra Ł350 million a week for the NHS etc etc. So there is no single coherent picture of how people perceive the concepts of Brexit or "getting it done" in their minds.     

"Must be" rather than "can be" I think. Just because a sentence makes sense grammatically doesn’t mean its content must make sense too. If someone wants to posit “outside time and a space” or some such they must explain what on earth they mean by it rather than just jump straight to telling us that that’s where their god lives.

What I would mean by that phrase is that the normal laws don't apply.

If they really want to do that cheat though, they have no choice but to accept that I could populate the same place with anything that takes my fancy too. It’s a classic “answer” that actually answers nothing at all.

True - which is why I agree that these concepts should not be taught as fact.   

Maybe, though the commonality of our neural architecture (and similarities across closely related species) suggest that most of us perceive things in approximately the same way at least.

It's difficult to say - I used to be an atheist and now I perceive and integrate my perception differently though I can still understand why atheism makes sense so I seem to be interpreting sensations and constructing concepts and thinking in 2 different ways. Plus what I think about the world influences (determines?) what I perceive. I think the commonality of our neural architecture still allows for huge diversity of perception and thought.

[Stranger]

You have answered your own question here by the word "influences".  Our conscious choices are influenced, not determined by the past.

If all the possible influences on an event/choice do not fully determine it, then some part of what determines it has nothing to do with any possible influence - meaning it is, to that extent, random.

The present state of our conscious awareness allows us to consciously choose what to invoke from all the influences which exist at the time we make the choice.

This is still meaningless gibberish.

You have to think beyond the limitations within the mechanistic world of physical chains of cause and effect to appreciate the enormous potential and capability which exist in our present state of human conscious awareness.

And you need to (at the very least) stop lying about the argument being about physical chains of cause and effect. The logic has nothing to do with whether minds are physical or not.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Gabriella,

This has been raised before but I'll raise it again - in every day life I often do not act on a default position of non-belief for practical reasons and also because if I did my life would not work out very well for me. My goal is to try to maximise my happiness within the constraints of the law along  with whatever dose I can muster of Kant's categorical imperative to do my duty to try to avoid the collapse of civilisation and part of my perception of what may maximise my happiness is not acting on a default position of non-belief in certain situations. My perception of the concept of God is one of those situation.

Which is all fine of course – others find similar benefits from tennis or yoga or whacky baccy or whatever. If choosing to believe that there’s a higher being does it for you, knock yourself out. We’re in agreement though I think that there’s no means to demonstrate that the object of the belief is also real.
 

Umm...occasionally my position is to adopt the default of non-belief until I see some proof.

I’ll give you WPP’s number then… ; - )

Yes but the problem is that people can only communicate the concept within the limitations of language. We may individually have a sense of what we think God is without being able to capture the perceptions we feel through the medium of language. Which is perhaps why there are so many conflicting stories to try and illustrate something that cannot be defined. Like ethics and political policies, religious ideas are diverse and depending on who you speak to can be subject to change and refinement  from one week to the next or espoused with dogmatic adherence or a variation of the two. Different parts of the concept appeal to different people. Bit like Brexit - some support/oppose the concept because they want to keep the foreigners out who dilute culture or change society's culture by getting more diverse people in, some want to protect our borders and try to keep foreign criminals out as we're barely coping with local criminals; some want to shore up power and influence or share it for economic gains , some want to protect people from themselves, some want more accountability and transparency, some hide from it, some want an extra Ł350 million a week for the NHS etc etc. So there is no single coherent picture of how people perceive the concepts of Brexit or "getting it done" in their minds.

That’s a curious notion to me – I think in words that make up comprehensible sentences, so any concepts I may have of something have to be articulated, even internally. Without language, I can’t see how I would conceptualise anything – a feeling, a sensation, an emotional hiatus maybe? All terribly vague though I’d have thought.

I think your analogies struggle too – political and ethical ideas can readily be expressed in language – indeed they have to be I’d have thought if they’re not to be white noise. We may disagree violently on an ethical or a political issue, but at least the two of us will know with reasonable precision what it is that we’re disagreeing about.         

What I would mean by that phrase is that the normal laws don't apply.

Which would be a handy line to take (albeit a casuistic one) but it then opens that same door to any other conjecture I may wish to essay. “Leprechauns? Of course they’re real only, you know, the normal laws don’t apply to them either” etc.
 

True - which is why I agree that these concepts should not be taught as fact.

Fair enough.   

It's difficult to say - I used to be an atheist and now I perceive and integrate my perception differently though I can still understand why atheism makes sense so I seem to be interpreting sensations and constructing concepts and thinking in 2 different ways. Plus what I think about the world influences (determines?) what I perceive. I think the commonality of our neural architecture still allows for huge diversity of perception and thought.

Quite possibly, but it does suggest a lot of commonality too. As I understand it by the way the traditional objections to anthropomorphism in the behavioural sciences have softened somewhat recently – people in the fields now argue that similarities in neural architecture across certain species may well indicate common experiences of consciousness for example, at least to some degree. After all, why would evolution have led to completely different models when variations on the same one were sufficient for the similar tasks and challenges these species face?

[SusanDoris]

Yes but the problem is that people can only communicate the concept within the limitations of language. We may individually have a sense of what we think God is without being able to capture the perceptions we feel through the medium of language. Which is perhaps why there are so many conflicting stories to try and illustrate something that cannot be defined.

Since reading that, I have been trying to think of something which can be imagined but which is entirely unable to have words to describe it. A definition is a step after that. Although each person imagining God will not visualise an exactly  similar image, shape, invisible voice perhaps,  or word picture, etc, not one of them will be able to begin to imagine the concept unless they have heard of the conceptfrom other people. Therefore, I would say that words are always available for all those God ideas. The person may or may not have an extensive vocabulary to call on, but no-one will be entirely without some words to employ. All such words will be able to communicate to a greater or lesser extent what the user has in mind, but none will be based on reality, i.e. an actual God.