Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

AB,

What "understanding" exactly do you think "it's magic innit?" provides? After all, you've already told us that you know nothing about what a supposed "soul" is, how the claim can be investigated or verified, how it operates outside of any known logical constraints etc so how on earth do you think such vapidity provides more understanding than the reason- and evidence-based model we have that goes a significant way toward solving or avoiding these problems?   

To put it another way: why do you think a jig-saw with no pieces is more likely to provide an accurate picture than a jig-saw with some pieces?

The jig saw is a good analogy.
Human scientific investigation has provided some of the pieces (which I do not deny or contradict), but in all honesty we do not know what is missing or how much is missing from the complete picture.  We have both attempted to fill in the missing pieces.  In your case, you have filled in pieces which give a very different picture from what we actually perceive to be our reality, but you seem to insist that your attempt to fill in the missing pieces offers a truer picture than what we perceive.  I have more faith in our own perception of reality, and have attempted to fill in pieces which can offer confirmation of our perception rather than contradict it, while at the same time not contradicting the science discovered to date.

[torridon]

I have never denied that human will is deterministic.  It derives 100% from the conscious will of the human soul.

If you accept that human will is deterministic, then you are agreeing with the rest of us, in principle.  As to whether if derives from a 'soul' or a 'mind' is a separate issue, and to convince people of 'souls' you need to point to some evidence.  Your old problem, Alan, assertion without evidence doesn't cut it with anyone bar you.

[Alan Burns]

Then the 'human soul' is 100% deterministic: there is no escape from the logic of this, Alan, once you've excluded the random, which you have done.

Unless you can explain something that isn't random, but neither is it 100% deterministic, then you are in 'not even wrong' territory.

You do not seem to understand.
Everything has a cause.  I have never disputed that.
What I contend is the ultimate source of human will.
Is it 100% physical reactions (over which we have no control), or is it determined by the conscious willpower of the human soul interacting with our material brain?

[Gordon]

The jig saw is a good analogy.
Human scientific investigation has provided some of the pieces (which I do not deny or contradict), but in all honesty we do not know what is missing or how much is missing from the complete picture.  We have both attempted to fill in the missing pieces.  In your case, you have filled in pieces which give a very different picture from what we actually perceive to be our reality, but you seem to insist that your attempt to fill in the missing pieces offers a truer picture than what we perceive.  I have more faith in our own perception of reality, and have attempted to fill in pieces which can offer confirmation of our perception rather than contradict it, while at the same time not contradicting the science discovered to date.

That isn't true, Alan.

Nobody you are exchanging views with here disputes that there are indeed gaps in knowledge, but it is you are not the rest of us here who are attempting to fill these gaps with pure speculation and/or religious superstitions. 

[Gordon]

You do not seem to understand.

Oh the irony.

Everything has a cause.  I have never disputed that.

Well you should: so the cause of 'God' is?

What I contend is the ultimate source of human will.

Which reads like a mix of begging the question and reification.

Is it 100% physical reactions (over which we have no control), or is it determined by the conscious willpower of the human soul interacting with our material brain?

Probably the former is more likely, and you end with a flourish of the fallacies of ignorance, consequences and incredulity.

[torridon]

Lack of understanding can't be used to show something is impossible, such as our human freedom to choose our thoughts, words and actions.

If you believe that, then why are you always wittering on about 'limited scientific knowledge' and how it is impossible that things like contemplation and deliberation can emerge from a deterministic system ?  Or how the human genome can be accounted for through 'beneficial mutations'.  I think you need to apply your advice to your own thinking, and not be so quick to resort to it is impossible, therefore supernatural.

[Stranger]

You do not seem to understand.
Everything has a cause.  I have never disputed that.
What I contend is the ultimate source of human will.

Back to the mindless repetition.   

This isn't complicated: if "human will" is an "ultimate source" or cause, and it isn't itself caused by all the things that led up to it, then you are denying that everything has a cause, what's more, that would make it random.

We all know your thought- and logic-free script by now Alan (I predicted everything you were going to say a few posts back: #39489), and every part of it has been answered, torn apart, and exposed for the nonsense that it is.

Where is the logic you claimed to have?

[torridon]

You do not seem to understand.
Everything has a cause.  I have never disputed that.
What I contend is the ultimate source of human will.
Is it 100% physical reactions (over which we have no control), or is it determined by the conscious willpower of the human soul interacting with our material brain?

By your admission above (everything has a cause) human will also has a cause;  This locates human will firmly within the flow of cause and effect, something which you have been resisting on here for years.

[Stranger]

Lack of understanding can't be used to show something is impossible, such as our human freedom to choose our thoughts, words and actions.

Lack of understanding can't, but self-contradiction can. Your version of "freedom" makes no more sense than a square circle. It is every bit as impossible that you are right about "freedom" as it is that you could draw a square circle.

I guess that's why you keep on pretending that the arguments against you are based on the material universe, you're just too frightened to face the truth.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The jig saw is a good analogy.

I know, but not in the way you think it is.

Human scientific investigation…

What other kind is there? Anyway…

... has provided some of the pieces (which I do not deny or contradict),

Yes you do – about evolutionary theory for example.

…but in all honesty we do not know what is missing or how much is missing from the complete picture.

Yes I know. That’s why people called scientists keep doing science - to find more of the missing pieces.

We have both attempted to fill in the missing pieces.

You haven’t. You’ve just thrown up your hands, said it’s all “beyond human understanding” and walked away. Your stance is essentially regressive – living in fearful ignorance by asserting “it’s all god’s will” or some such is the abnegation of learning and progress. It’s precisely because some people haven’t settled for that non-answer and instead have investigated, tested and invented that we have the fruits of scientific endeavour now. 

In your case, you have filled in pieces…

Not “you” – reason and science and honest engagement with the evidence but ok…

which give a very different picture from what we actually perceive to be our reality,

Yes. Cogent reasoning and hard evidence tend to do that in many cases. That’s because evolution has no remit to enable us to intuit an objective reality just by living in it – rather it’s given us abilities that best confer survival advantages, but no more. “What we actually perceive to be our reality” is in other words only that – a perception – whereas a more rigorous approach tells us that our perceptions are often wrong at an explanatory level.   

…but you seem to insist that your attempt to fill in the missing pieces offers a truer picture than what we perceive.

Again, not “your” – reason and evidence and science do that, and absolutely yes. “What we perceive” is a highly unreliable, subjective, essentially arbitrary way to understand reality. That’s where you keep going wrong remember? “Free will feels free to me, therefore it is free” is epistemically worthless whichever way you look at it.   

…but I have more faith in our own perception of reality,…

Yes, we know you have “faith”. The problem is, that’s all you have – and your faith beliefs are often demonstrably wrong too.

…and have attempted to fill in pieces which can offer confirmation of our perception rather than contradict it,…

Yes, folklore and myth tends to do that – “the branch of the tree hit me, therefore a malevolent spirit lives inside it” etc. Through history we’ve shaped and formed these myths to fit with our subjective perceptions of reality. Since the ancient Greeks though some at least have had the sense to delve deeper than just perception and have developed more robust, logically consistent, functionally useful understandings of reality that dispel the non-answers of the superstitionists.   

…while at the same time not contradicting the science discovered to date.

Utter bollocks. First you have no idea what science has discovered to date. The many corrections you’re given when you get the science wrong is evidence of that. Second, you dismiss at a stroke all of the scientific disciplines painstakingly piecing together our understanding of consciousness in particular, and you insert magic agencies into evolutionary theory so as to fit your circular reasoning mistake. Third, your mindless, unqualified, non-investigable claims and assertions are the very antithesis of the scientific method – that is, you remain rooted firmly in the “not even wrong” territory of intellectual gibberish.

Apart from all that though…

So again: why do you think a jig-saw with no pieces is more likely to give an accurate picture than a jig-saw with some of the pieces?

[jeremyp]

I have a choice between feasible options a or b.  Situation c offers the choice, but c does not make the choice - I make the choice.

Yes but you are a deterministic machine - like all other human beings. You are part of situation c.

Suppose, in situation c, you make choice  a. If situation c was rerun, would you make the same choice? Note that, by saying situation c is rerun, all your knowledge of what happened  the first time, would have to be erased because you are part of situation c.

[Stranger]

I have never denied that human will is deterministic.

Missed this repetition of one of your blatant falsehoods. As has been explained to you endless times, every time you claim that we could have done differently, you are denying that human will is deterministic.

See: #32591 and #32601.

Seriously Alan, what's the matter with you? Why do you just go on making a fool of yourself and portraying your faith as dishonest and/or delusional?

[ippy]

Missed this repetition of one of your blatant falsehoods. As has been explained to you endless times, every time you claim that we could have done differently, you are denying that human will is deterministic.

See: #32591 and #32601.

Seriously Alan, what's the matter with you? Why do you just go on making a fool of yourself and portraying your faith as dishonest and/or delusional?

I recon he thinks he's on some sort of crusade and thinks his imaginary invisible friend'll award him shedloads of brownie points for winding up terrible devil worshippers like you NTS, or something else very much like it.

ippy.

[Alan Burns]

So again: why do you think a jig-saw with no pieces is more likely to give an accurate picture than a jig-saw with some of the pieces?

You appear to have ignored many pieces of the jigsaw which enable us to see more of the full picture.  By limiting your scope of investigation to what has been discovered in the world of material science you have come up with a model of reality entirely based upon what can be achieved in terms of material properties.  Such a model of reality falls far short of the true reality we all experience.  The capability of the human mind to choose its own destiny is the vital piece of the jigsaw which you have ignored by trying to pass it off as a perceived experience rather than a reality.

[Alan Burns]

As has been explained to you endless times, every time you claim that we could have done differently, you are denying that human will is deterministic.

No.
I am denying that human will is entirely determined by the past.
What I have said is that human will is determined by the present state of our conscious human mind - implying that the human mind is not controlled by past chains of physical cause and effect, but by the spiritual nature of the human soul which exists and acts in the present.

[torridon]

You appear to have ignored many pieces of the jigsaw which enable us to see more of the full picture.  By limiting your scope of investigation to what has been discovered in the world of material science you have come up with a model of reality entirely based upon what can be achieved in terms of material properties.  Such a model of reality falls far short of the true reality we all experience.  The capability of the human mind to choose its own destiny is the vital piece of the jigsaw which you have ignored by trying to pass it off as a perceived experience rather than a reality.

Another day, another nonsense post from Mr Burns.  Since when did 'material science' lack any concept of forward planning ? We build an understanding of fundamental processes and roll them forward to see where current trends might land us in the future; this in turn informs the choices we make in the present moment.  This is why we do climate modelling, this is why epidemiologists model the spread of novel Coronavirus, forward planning is absolutely mainstream science.

[torridon]

No.
I am denying that human will is entirely determined by the past.
What I have said is that human will is determined by the present state of our conscious human mind - implying that the human mind is not controlled by past chains of physical cause and effect, but by the spiritual nature of the human soul which exists and acts in the present.

Suppose that were the case, then to the extent that choice is not determined by the past, on what basis would our minds resolve choice ?  You'll have to come up with some alternative paradigm.  What do you propose ?

[Stranger]

No.
I am denying that human will is entirely determined by the past.

Being entirely determined by the past is what deterministic means. I guess you just couldn't be arsed to follow the links back to the previous times I've explained this to you., so here it is again.

The term is very common in the free will debate and means that minds are deterministic systems - "...a deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system. A deterministic model will thus always produce the same output from a given starting condition or initial state."

Alternatively:

deterministic - "Relating to the philosophical doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes regarded as external to the will."

Wiki redirects deterministic to Determinism - "Determinism is the philosophical theory that all events, including moral choices, are determined completely by previously existing causes."

So, determined by some self-contradictory magic thingy that manages to choose without involving any randomness and without being entirely due to what went before, is not deterministic.

This has been explained multiple times so why are you repeating it? Just lying? Never bother to read anything properly? In capable of learning? So arrogant that you think you can just define words any way you want? What is it?

[Stranger]

By limiting your scope of investigation to what has been discovered in the world of material science you have come up with a model of reality entirely based upon what can be achieved in terms of material properties.

    Yet again for the hard-of-thinking: your problem is a logical one that has nothing to do with "material properties". The fact that if you could have done differently in exactly the same situation means that there must be a random element, has nothing to do with physics.

Your desperate attempts to pretend that the limitation can be done away with by positing a non-material soul, say far more about your inability or reluctance to face up the the real arguments, than it does about the issue itself.

Such a model of reality falls far short of the true reality we all experience.

No, it does not.

Where is the logic you claimed to have?

Why won't you even try to set out a logical argument, or at least have the basic human honesty to admit you were wrong to claim you had such an argument?

[Gordon]

No.
I am denying that human will is entirely determined by the past.
What I have said is that human will is determined by the present state of our conscious human mind - implying that the human mind is not controlled by past chains of physical cause and effect, but by the spiritual nature of the human soul which exists and acts in the present.

Alan

The 'present state' is determined by the relevant previous states unless there is randomness involved, and you yourself reject that there is randomness, so no amount of 'spiritual' pleading resolves the logical contradiction you've created for yourself.

You've already falsified your own claim, so maybe you should give up on it. 

[Outrider]

The jig saw is a good analogy.

Human scientific investigation has provided some of the pieces (which I do not deny or contradict), but in all honesty we do not know what is missing or how much is missing from the complete picture.

I think you've misapplied your analogy - nature provides the pieces, science is how we determine which ones fit together.  Religion is attempting to suggest that there's a parallel jigsaw which is equally as valid, which you can't see, which doesn't have any pieces which intersect with the jigsaw, but somehow the jigsaw isn't finished if you don't have it...

We have both attempted to fill in the missing pieces.

Nature does not have missing pieces - nature is whole, nature works in its entirety.  We don't have all the pieces put together in our image of the jigsaw, but all the pieces are already there in the box.

In your case, you have filled in pieces which give a very different picture from what we actually perceive to be our reality, but you seem to insist that your attempt to fill in the missing pieces offers a truer picture than what we perceive.

But if you've got two pieces that fit together, you've got two pieces that fit together - once the jigsaw is complete you find that those two bits that seemed to clash actually work in the whole thing - not every blue line in a jigsaw continues being a blue line as you cross to the next piece.

I have more faith in our own perception of reality, and have attempted to fill in pieces which can offer confirmation of our perception rather than contradict it, while at the same time not contradicting the science discovered to date.

Your faith in the capacity of human perception is manifestly, exhaustively demonstrated as misplaced. Confirmation bias, unreliability of memory, perception filtering, focus/inattention paradoxes... the list of the perceptual shortfalls of the human body and mind is extensive.

O.

[Alan Burns]

Yes you do – about evolutionary theory for example.

I do not dispute the fact that life evolved incrementally over a long period of time.
There is nothing in the observable facts that can define the cause of the beneficial mutations involved in the evolution of life.  Nor is there any definable cause for the events which brought the first living cells into existence.

My contention with evolution is concerned with the improbability of unguided, purposeless forces being able to produce all the complexity needed for life as we know it to exist.  We can observe the creative power of human will acting within this material universe, so I see reason to consider the creative power of God's will acting as a guiding force within the evolutionary process.  I see overwhelming evidence for the reality and power of conscious intention acting within this material universe to bring about both God's and Mankind's creations.

[Alan Burns]

I think you've misapplied your analogy - nature provides the pieces, science is how we determine which ones fit together.  Religion is attempting to suggest that there's a parallel jigsaw which is equally as valid, which you can't see, which doesn't have any pieces which intersect with the jigsaw, but somehow the jigsaw isn't finished if you don't have it...

I do not see religion as a separate jigsaw, but as an essential component of the picture of the life we know exists.  I see no incompatibility with the concept of spiritually guided interaction acting within our material universe to facilitate the reality we all perceive.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You appear to have ignored many pieces of the jigsaw which enable us to see more of the full picture.  By limiting your scope of investigation to what has been discovered in the world of material science you have come up with a model of reality entirely based upon what can be achieved in terms of material properties.  Such a model of reality falls far short of the true reality we all experience.  The capability of the human mind to choose its own destiny is the vital piece of the jigsaw which you have ignored by trying to pass it off as a perceived experience rather than a reality.

So in Reply 39509 I took the time and trouble to correct every one of the string of mistakes you’d made in your previous post, only for you to ignore almost all of it in favour of repeating exactly the same car crash in reasoning. Why do you do that? Does it not occur to you that never owning your mistakes means you’ll never learn from them, and so you’re condemned to repeat them endlessly (which is in fact what you do).

Why not go back to Reply 39509, actually try to THINK about what’s being said to you and then reply point-by-point – either with a counter-argument (and no, assertions are not counter-arguments at all by the way) or with a concession that you went wrong and a commitment to learn from the mistake by not repeating it. Seriously, why would you not do that?

As for your last egregious nonsense, I haven’t “ignored many pieces of the jigsaw which enable us to see more of the full picture” at all because – obviously – so far at least you’ve never managed to demonstrate that these supposed other pieces exist at all. Remember?

Yes, science concerns only the material because that’s all its methods are capable of investigating. That does not though give you carte blanche just to assert into existence a non-material, let alone give you any reason to think your assertions about it should be taken seriously. YET AGAIN: IF YOU THINK THERE”S A NON-MATERIAL AND YOU KNOW WHAT”S IN IT THEN, FINALLY, DEMONSTRATE IT BY PROVIDING A METHOD OF YOUR OWN TO INVESTIGATE AND VERIFY THE CLAIM.

As I and others have explained, “human perception” is just about the most unreliable approach to understanding the world we inhabit, and just assuming things are really just as they seem to be may have been forgivable before we had the methods and tools to know better, but now it’s just wilful ignorance or worse.

Once again: if you think there’s another picture that science cannot reach, justify the claim. Show us some of the pieces with something more than unqualified assertions or wrong reasoning. As you’ve demonstrated no such pieces at all so far, the question remains: why do you think a jig-saw with no pieces is more likely to give an accurate picture than a jig-saw with some of the pieces?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I do not dispute the fact that life evolved incrementally over a long period of time.
There is nothing in the observable facts that can define the cause of the beneficial mutations involved in the evolution of life.  Nor is there any definable cause for the events which brought the first living cells into existence.

My contention with evolution is concerned with the improbability of unguided, purposeless forces being able to produce all the complexity needed for life as we know it to exist.  We can observe the creative power of human will acting within this material universe, so I see reason to consider the creative power of God's will acting as a guiding force within the evolutionary process.  I see overwhelming evidence for the reality and power of conscious intention acting within this material universe to bring about both God's and Mankind's creations.

Long ago and far away you made this same fundamental mistake in reasoning and I took the time to correct you on it. Unsurprisingly, you just ignored the correction and now here you are repeating the mistake. You’ve learned nothing.

Briefly, what you’re attempting is: “the probability of me occurring randomly is very low, therefore God”. This is called the reference point error (or sometimes the lottery winner’s fallacy) and it’s a piece of circular reasoning. It only works if you assume there to have been a god who intended you as the outcome in the first place: “God meant the universe to produce me, the odds against nature doing that by chance are very long, therefore God”.

Can you see the circularity there? If you junk the solipsism and grasp that the “the universe” didn’t know or care what life forms it would produce, ANY conscious and self-aware species with poor reasoning skills might think as you do – that it was somehow intended all along, and so a god must have meant it to be that way.

Now try. Really, really TRY to grasp this perfectly clear and simple argument this time and tell me that you’ve finally understood it. You cannot have an argument that CONCLUDES “god” when its premise also REQUIRES god.

Capiche?

Something?

Anything?