Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

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.

As I have previously pointed out many times, you cannot presume to know that non physical causes must be subject to the same time dependent cause and effect chains as physically controlled reactions.  And the other aspect of the word "physical" is that by implication a physically generated event will just be an uncontrollable reaction subject to the laws of physics.  We can have no control over the laws of physics, but conscious control does emanate from the human mind.  You need to honestly ask yourself if you are just an inevitable consequence of physically defined chains of reactions, or could there be something else beyond these limitations to enable the freedom we all perceive to be a reality. 

[Gordon]

As I have previously pointed out many times, you cannot presume to know that non physical causes must be subject to the same time dependent cause and effect chains as physically controlled reactions.  And the other aspect of the word "physical" is that by implication a physically generated event will just be an uncontrollable reaction subject to the laws of physics.  We can have no control over the laws of physics, but conscious control does emanate from the human mind.  You need to honestly ask yourself if you are just an inevitable consequence of physically defined chains of reactions, or could there be something else beyond these limitations to enable the freedom we all perceive to be a reality.

Hopeless, just hopeless, Alan.

[Outrider]

As I have previously pointed out many times, you cannot presume to know that non physical causes must be subject to the same time dependent cause and effect chains as physically controlled reactions.

Except that to have an effect in the real world it would have to interact with some of those physical elements in real time - if you have a reason to think that this is something outside of sequential time then explain why, explain how.  You can't, though, just decide that because what is measurable and detectable doesn't have room for your conjecture that therefore you can declare it outside of conventional physics without some sort of framework mechanism, without evidence of where it fits into the physical and has a demonstrable effect.

Saying 'non-physical causes which aren't time-dependent' is just wrapping 'Magic!' in extra syllables - it's not an explanation, it's an attempt to camouflage a lack of an explanation.

And the other aspect of the word "physical" is that by implication a physically generated event will just be an uncontrollable reaction subject to the laws of physics.  We can have no control over the laws of physics, but conscious control does emanate from the human mind.

So you keep claiming.  You appear to be incapable of expressing any other idea.  It's almost like you don't have a choice...

You need to honestly ask yourself if you are just an inevitable consequence of physically defined chains of reactions, or could there be something else beyond these limitations to enable the freedom we all perceive to be a reality.

Are we an inevitable consequence (or, rather, waypoint) in a sequence of physically defined chains of events - that's what the evidence suggests, yes.  Could there be something else... possibly, but as yet you've not offered any reason to think so.

O.

[Alan Burns]

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

It all depends upon the parameters the said logic is based on.

The logic constantly thrown back at me is that every event must have a cause.
I entirely agree with this.

But in the context under consideration, human will cannot in itself be classed as an event.  It is certainly the cause of an event, but it is effectively a state of the conscious mind.  If you consider the conscious mind to be entirely defined by material reactions, then it will indeed be entirely controlled by cause and effect chains of events.   My understanding is that human conscious awareness is by definition awareness of events - not the events themselves.  And the ability of the conscious mind to choose to invoke an event defines as a cause - not as an event.

[Outrider]

It all depends upon the parameters the said logic is based on.

Logic doesn't have parameters - it has premises and conclusions.

The logic constantly thrown back at me is that every event must have a cause.

Actually, the logic thrown at you is that everything we've been able to study is an event that has an identifiable cause, and from that we have deduced that everything has a cause. (This is part of the issue with the concept of 'random' elements in nature).  That doesn't preclude uncaused events, it just says that because in our reasonably broad and deep history of studying reality we've not found one, we're going to proceed on the assumption that things have a cause until we can find something that DEMONSTRABLY doesn't.

But in the context under consideration, human will cannot in itself be classed as an event.

Uh... say what now?

It is certainly the cause of an event, but it is effectively a state of the conscious mind.

States are events.  Ice is a state of water, and it occurs in certain circumstances with identifiable interacting parameters (pressure, salinity, temperature etc.)

If you consider the conscious mind to be entirely defined by material reactions, then it will indeed be entirely controlled by cause and effect chains of events.

Fine.

My understanding is that human conscious awareness is by definition awareness of events - not the events themselves.

My understanding is that human consciousness is brain activity that operates as a feedback loop giving sensory input as to the activity of the brain.

And the ability of the conscious mind to choose to invoke an event defines as a cause - not as an event.

Except that, regardless of whether you believe consciousness is entirely physical or not, conscious thought happens in response to stimuli.

O.

[Stranger]

As I have previously pointed out many times...

...and totally ignored the answers you get just as often.

...you cannot presume to know that non physical causes must be subject to the same time dependent cause and effect chains as physically controlled reactions.

Human thoughts, whether produced by entirely physical means or otherwise, do exist within, and develop over, time and therefore, either form a deterministic deterministic system or not (and therefore involve randomness).

Either each step in the mental process of making a choice is fully the result of all that led up to it, or it isn't. If it isn't, then some part of it must be due to nothing that led to it and is therefore random.

Unless you can explain how anything "non-material" makes the slightest difference to that logic, every time you say my argument is based on the physical, you are lying. I did not base that reasoning on minds being physical.

And the other aspect of the word "physical" is that by implication a physically generated event will just be an uncontrollable reaction subject to the laws of physics.  We can have no control over the laws of physics, but conscious control does emanate from the human mind.

And as I just pointed out, exactly the same would apply to a non-physical mind, it's just that the laws governing it might be different. You have no control over the way your mind works anyway because your mind and how it works (physical or otherwise) is you.

You need to honestly ask yourself if you are just an inevitable consequence of physically defined chains of reactions, or could there be something else beyond these limitations to enable the freedom we all perceive to be a reality.

I am obviously the consequence of all the things that made me me and your self-contradictory nonsense is not only not what I experience, it doesn't even make sense - it is meaningless babble, gibberish, and gobbledygook.

[Stranger]

But in the context under consideration, human will cannot in itself be classed as an event.

What nonsense. You make a choice at a point in time; that is an event.

It is certainly the cause of an event, but it is effectively a state of the conscious mind.

A state that is either fully the result of all the events that led to it, or not - and if not, involving something that wasn't due to anything that led to it, and therefore random.

My understanding is that human conscious awareness is by definition awareness of events - not the events themselves.  And the ability of the conscious mind to choose to invoke an event defines as a cause - not as an event.

You seem to be muddling up (trying to conflate?) awareness and actions. A choice is obviously an event and choices obviously have causes (unless they are random).

[Gordon]

But in the context under consideration, human will cannot in itself be classed as an event.

Don't be silly, Alan: 'will' is a neurological event.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Hi Gabriella,

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.

Hi BHS - yes - I agree - no means to demonstrate that.
 

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

When I wrote the part about the slick marketing I was actually thinking of the achievements of the trans lobby and the aggressive tactics of some of their more vocal members. I can see an increased support for their aims as a result of screaming "transphobic" at everyone who disagrees with their opinions and getting in early to bend the ear of policy makers before policy is formed - and to me that has been an effective way of marketing or promoting their cause. I really don't see the same happening for the Catholic Church in the UK - they seem to be haemorrhaging support. We are just going to have to agree that we both do not perceive this issue in the same way.

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.

Yes vague - it's a sensation and the words and images I might attach to it, even as I am thinking them I know they are just inaccurate representations that my brain is conjuring up because all it can do is come up with words and images that it has previously encountered.

I similarly struggle with notions of "love". I really do not know what "love" is or what is the point of it, based on all the words out there to articulate it that to me often seem to contradict each other, do not seem to make logical sense, and seem to capture the concept inadequately. But I know I feel something that I could call "love".

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.

I used to think so about political issues until the Brexit issue came along. But driving in the car, I have heard countless people come on LBC and support an idea based on a feeling without being able to articulate the feeling behind their arguments and even when the logic and evidence is just not there to support their arguments. But they doggedly cling onto their position as a way to give expression to a feeling.         

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.

I agree. For example, the concept of an infinite past - I am not sure how that works. How did something eternal begin? But it's part of a particular kind of concept of God - so you end up accepting that for the concept to work the normal rules do not apply.
 

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?

Yes - different species may well have experiences of consciousness similar to humans. Hopefully not to the extent where their musings and abstract thought lead to the amount of conflict this ability seems to have generated in humans.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It all depends upon the parameters the said logic is based on.

No it doesn't. Logic is logic, and every time you commit an error in logic then your argument fails just there. There is no process by which if you're arguing to justify a conclusion you happen to like that conclusion somehow reaches back and makes an invalid argument into a valid one. I'm aware that you're incapable of learning anything but if you could learn just one thing, learn that.

[Enki]

Alan, with reference to your post 37975:

As I have previously pointed out many times, you cannot presume to know that non physical causes must be subject to the same time dependent cause and effect chains as physically controlled reactions.

What on earth do you mean by 'time dependent'? If effects came before causes, the world would be extremely confusing, literally running backwards. If effects had no time relation to causes, then  the world would be chaotic.

And the other aspect of the word "physical" is that by implication a physically generated event will just be an uncontrollable reaction subject to the laws of physics.

Nope, anything subject to the laws of physics is not 'uncontrollable', it is controlled by the laws of physics.

We can have no control over the laws of physics, but conscious control does emanate from the human mind.

I agree that both consciousness and control emanate from the human mind, which, itself, is a product of the human brain. If you take the view that we are our brains then the 'we' becomes meaningless in your sentence.

You need to honestly ask yourself if you are just an inevitable consequence of physically defined chains of reactions, or could there be something else beyond these limitations to enable the freedom we all perceive to be a reality.

I don't see myself as 'just' anything, Alan. The idea that I am my brain, and that this brain produces immeasurable physical reactions(or interactions) makes good sense to me, especially in light of the vast and increasing knowledge of its capabilities and limitations. Could there be something else? Possibly, but without explaining how it functions(including how to get over the logic of determined/random choice), where it is located, how it interacts with the physical brain or even producing evidence that it actually exists, then that's all it remains, a possibility.

[Alan Burns]

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.

Dear Blue,
Just labelling something as an emergent property explains nothing.  It is just a meaningless label.  It does not explain what emerges.  It does not explain how the emergence works.  It does not explain why it emerges. 

So we are still left with these fundamental questions:

What is a conscious thought?
How does a conscious thought work?
Why did the conscious thought come into existence?

Over to you.

[Stranger]

Just labelling something as an emergent property explains nothing.  It is just a meaningless label.  It does not explain what emerges.  It does not explain how the emergence works.  It does not explain why it emerges. 

So we are still left with these fundamental questions:

What is a conscious thought?
How does a conscious thought work?
Why did the conscious thought come into existence?

Over to you.

Says the guy whose "answers" consist of meaningless labels and other gibberish, unevidenced magic, blind faith assertions, self-contradiction, and multiple logical fallacies. You have given us no explanations at all - it is staggeringly hypocritical to criticise the gaps in the evidence based science.

Matthew 7:5 springs to mind.....

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Dear Blue,
Just labelling something as an emergent property explains nothing.  It is just a meaningless label.  It does not explain what emerges.  It does not explain how the emergence works.  It does not explain why it emerges.

So we are still left with these fundamental questions:

What is a conscious thought?
How does a conscious thought work?
Why did the conscious thought come into existence?

Over to you.

That’s just hysterical, and the hypocrisy is on a galactic scale too.

First, no-one “just labels” something as an emergent property. Unlike “soul” it’s not a meaningless label at all – it’s a well understood and well documented phenomenon that appears when multiple simple agents interact in an environment to form more complex behaviours as a collective. Non-living examples include weather systems; living examples include swarming and indeed life itself. I’d post some links for you but you won’t bother looking at them so there’s no point.

A thought is the experience of information processing.

How it works has been explained to you before now at length by Outy in particular so why repeat the question?

Why it came into existence is that it conferred evolutionary advantage on the creatures that had it.     
 
So there we have it – a perfectly commonplace phenomenon that’s well understood and from which there’s no good reason to exclude consciousness as highly likely to be just another example. Many of the processes involved are already understood, and various fields of academic study and research are actively working to fill in the gaps. Maybe one day they’ll have every part of the jig-saw and maybe they won’t, but just now having gaps in knowledge is no reason to discard the already highly promising picture we have.

Now then, by contrast:

What is a “soul”?

How does a “soul” work?

Why did “souls” come into existence?   

Over to you.

PS Oh, I nearly forgot. What you’ve done here is (yet another) argument from personal incredulity – one of your favourite fallacies. Even if every answer to your questions was “don’t know” that would take you not one jot toward making a case for “soul”, or indeed for any other of your fantastical menageries of superstitious spooks and ghoulies from the Middle Ages.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Gabriella,

When I wrote the part about the slick marketing I was actually thinking of the achievements of the trans lobby and the aggressive tactics of some of their more vocal members. I can see an increased support for their aims as a result of screaming "transphobic" at everyone who disagrees with their opinions and getting in early to bend the ear of policy makers before policy is formed - and to me that has been an effective way of marketing or promoting their cause. I really don't see the same happening for the Catholic Church in the UK - they seem to be haemorrhaging support. We are just going to have to agree that we both do not perceive this issue in the same way.

Fair enough.

Yes vague - it's a sensation and the words and images I might attach to it, even as I am thinking them I know they are just inaccurate representations that my brain is conjuring up because all it can do is come up with words and images that it has previously encountered.

I similarly struggle with notions of "love". I really do not know what "love" is or what is the point of it, based on all the words out there to articulate it that to me often seem to contradict each other, do not seem to make logical sense, and seem to capture the concept inadequately. But I know I feel something that I could call "love".

That’s a category error I think. You and I could talk quite readily about the experience “love” because, presumably, we’ve both had it so there’d be common ground even though we were discussing a subjective emotion. By contract, if you want to call “god” an objective fact and to talk to me about it I have no idea what you mean (ie, I’m an ignostic). You may as well say “U&Y*&” for all the sense it makes to me so there’s no common ground at all. Of course you could say you feel love for your belief “god” (just as I may feel love for my belief “8o87t”), but that’s a different matter.     

I used to think so about political issues until the Brexit issue came along. But driving in the car, I have heard countless people come on LBC and support an idea based on a feeling without being able to articulate the feeling behind their arguments and even when the logic and evidence is just not there to support their arguments. But they doggedly cling onto their position as a way to give expression to a feeling.

Yes they do, and then they get angry too with person who explains that they’ve been lied to rather than with the people who did the lying. People eh? What I was saying though was that nonetheless the objects of the disagreements (£350m on the side of the bus for example) are at least comprehensible to both sides because they’re articulated in a common language even though they may have opposing opinions about them.   

I agree. For example, the concept of an infinite past - I am not sure how that works. How did something eternal begin?

Um, if it’s eternal then it didn’t begin. That’s what “eternal” means ; - )

But it's part of a particular kind of concept of God - so you end up accepting that for the concept to work the normal rules do not apply.

Yes, but that’s the tail wagging the dog: I want this concept to work, therefore I have to suspend reality to make it work. Would it not be better to start with reality and then to conclude that the concept cannot therefore work?
 

Yes - different species may well have experiences of consciousness similar to humans. Hopefully not to the extent where their musings and abstract thought lead to the amount of conflict this ability seems to have generated in humans.

Who knows? Maybe there’s an octopus version of AB somewhere asserting over and over again that the tides going in and out are Poseidon using his magic net or something… ; - )

[Alan Burns]

First, no-one “just labels” something as an emergent property. Unlike “soul” it’s not a meaningless label at all – it’s a well understood and well documented phenomenon that appears when multiple simple agents interact in an environment to form more complex behaviours as a collective. Non-living examples include weather systems; living examples include swarming and indeed life itself. I’d post some links for you but you won’t bother looking at them so there’s no point.

It just boils down to the mantra:
observed complexity stems from underlying simplicity
Which is simply a statement of the obvious, and explains nothing of substance.

A thought is the experience of information processing.

So do computers have conscious thoughts?
I think not.

How it works has been explained to you before now at length by Outy in particular so why repeat the question?

As far as I know there has been no explanation for how conscious thoughts work, particularly when we have no definition for what they are or what drives them.

Why it came into existence is that it conferred evolutionary advantage on the creatures that had it.     
 

You may need to explain why conscious perception of information processing confers more survival advantage than information processing without conscious perception.

(I will answer your other points later when I have more time)

[Stranger]

Alan, you really do need to understand that arguing for the supernatural on the basis of some (supposed) gap in the scientific explanation is just an argument from ignorance (or incredulity if you claim the gap cannot be explained) - and is therefore a fallacy.

Nobody needs to explain anything to dismiss your obviously fallacious and self-contradictory nonsense.

You need to try to come up with an argument that isn't obviously flawed.

[Alan Burns]

What is a “soul”?

A soul is what survives after the material body dies.
(for more information see the divinely inspired writings of the Christian bible)

How does a “soul” work?

By conferring on us the ability to recognise and consciously choose between good and evil.  How it enables these attributes is known to God, not to us.

Why did “souls” come into existence?   

To know God, to love Him and serve Him, and to enjoy eternal happiness with Him.
(from my catechism)

[Stranger]

A soul is what survives after the material body dies.
(for more information see the divinely inspired writings of the Christian bible)

By conferring on us the ability to recognise and consciously choose between good and evil.  How it enables these attributes is known to God, not to us.

To know God, to love Him and serve Him, and to enjoy eternal happiness with Him.

Just religious superstition, then.   

[SusanDoris]

A soul is what survives after the material body dies.
(for more information see the divinely inspired writings of the Christian bible)By conferring on us the ability to recognise and consciously choose between good and evil.  How it enables these attributes is known to God, not to us.To know God, to love Him and serve Him, and to enjoy eternal happiness with Him.
(from my catechism)

cringe-inducing drivel, as usual.

[Roses]

A soul is what survives after the material body dies.
(for more information see the divinely inspired writings of the Christian bible)By conferring on us the ability to recognise and consciously choose between good and evil.  How it enables these attributes is known to God, not to us.To know God, to love Him and serve Him, and to enjoy eternal happiness with Him.
(from my catechism)

You believe all that to be true, I don't doubt that for a second, but you have never come up with any verifiable evidence to support your belief. What you consider to be 'evidence' is mere conjecture on your part, and not in the least bit credible to most of the posters on this forum.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It just boils down to the mantra:
observed complexity stems from underlying simplicity
Which is simply a statement of the obvious, and explains nothing of substance.

Pretty much every aspect of the world you engage with is emergent, from weather to cities to social organisations to anything in which simple components interacting have properties collectively they don’t have individually:

https://sciencing.com/emergent-properties-8232868.html

I’ve sent you links to further information about this, recommended books about it and explained it countless times. Your complete and utter ignorance of the subject built on your refusal to find out about it does not mean that it “explains nothing” at all. It actually explains an enormous amount, but you’re too scared to find out what that is because it undermines your eructations “soul” etc that actually explain nothing at all. 

So do computers have conscious thoughts?

No because, so far at least, they lack the complexity to develop self-awareness of their own. One day though they may well do.

I think not.

You can say that again.

As far as I know there has been no explanation for how conscious thoughts work, particularly when we have no definition for what they are or what drives them.

Stop lying.

You may need to explain why conscious perception of information processing confers more survival advantage than information processing without conscious perception.

I’d have thought it was obvious even to you. There are environmental circumstances in which consciousness confers an advantage – when there are multiple choices to consider so the risks and rewards of each have to be weighed for example. 

(I will answer your other points later when I have more time)

No you won't.

A soul is what survives after the material body dies.

I asked you what it is, not when it exists.

(for more information see the divinely inspired writings of the Christian bible)

Where in that book does it tell you what a “soul” actually is?

By conferring on us the ability to recognise and consciously choose between good and evil.

I asked you how it works, not what it does.

How it enables these attributes is known to God, not to us.

So you have no idea how it works then. Handy that.

To know God, to love Him and serve Him, and to enjoy eternal happiness with Him.(from my catechism)

So you have you invent these “souls” as a device to make a superstition you happen to believe in possible then. Just like leprechauns came into existence to put the pots of gold at the ends of rainbows in fact. Doesn’t work does it?

So, to summarise we have a vast body of knowledge and experience of emergent properties from which there’s no good reason to exclude consciousness as an example on the one hand, and on the other we have your dismissal of all of it based only on your wilful ignorance of the subject so you can replace it with claims and assertions for which you have no logic, no explanations, no evidence, no anything whatsoever. 

Not looking good is it?

[Alan Burns]

I asked you what it is, not when it exists.

The soul in essence is you, Blue.
Without it you are a lump of reconstituted star debris just reacting in accordance with the purposeless, unguided forces of nature with no will of your own.

[Stranger]

The soul in essence is you, Blue.
Without it you are a lump of reconstituted star debris just reacting in accordance with the purposeless, unguided forces of nature with no will of your own.

More illogical nonsense and dishonest misrepresentation. More evidence that your faith destroys the ability to reason clearly and compromises basic human honesty.

Your own version of "will" is a meaningless, impossible, unimaginable contradiction. The only way it is possible for an entity to make wilful and purposeful choices is if it is due to chains of cause and effect (reactions). It is the "forces of nature" themselves that produce an entity that exhibits will, purpose, and guided action.

This has been explained to you endless times, you keep claiming to have understood, yet you ignore it totally and just drivel on repeating the same dishonest misrepresentation.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The soul in essence is you, Blue.
Without it you are a lump of reconstituted star debris just reacting in accordance with the purposeless, unguided forces of nature with no will of your own.

1. Total avoidance of my demolition of your latest car crash attempts at argument.

2. Still no information at all about what a "soul'" is, where it is, how it functions etc.

3. Unqualified assertion with no logic, no evidence, no explanatory use, no anything re “soul”.

4. Flat out lie re “no will of your own” coupled with a failure to grasp that the actual will we have sits at one level of abstraction, but necessarily cannot be an underlying explanation for the experience.

5. Fallacy of pejorative language – “poisoning the well”.

6. Fallacy of argumentum ad consequentiam – even if anything you said was true and you didn’t like it that would change reality not one jot.

Just out of interest, why do you bother? You’re clearly unable to construct an argument that doesn’t collapse immediately into a mess of inconsistency, self-contradiction and incoherence so why even try? Surely you’d be on safer ground sticking to the faith sharing area and just telling anyone who cares what your beliefs are rather than trying to justify them to people who can so easily dismantle those justifications?