Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

From my own experience -
I have lost count of the number of times I have been frantically searching for something, when my wife reminds me saying, "Have you said a prayer yet?", and after saying a prayer, hey presto - I remember where I put it!

Time to introduce you to another fallacy in thinking that you’ve just committed – the availability heuristic. “What’s that?” you ask. Well, I’ll tell you – the availability heuristic (also known as availability bias) is what happens when one narrative is more readily recalled than others, so you overestimate its frequency. Thus if, say, you buy a green car suddenly every other car you see on the road appears to be a green one too when in fact the frequency of green cars is the same as it always was. What’s happening here is that you (or your wife apparently) is saying, “do you remember that time you couldn’t find your keys, then you prayed to find them, then you found them?” and you take these random examples and overestimate how often that happened. The reality though is that you didn’t find your car key any more successfully whether or not you prayed to find them.   

How do I know this? I know this because, unlike you and your homely anecdotes, I’ve bothered to look at the research of people who have actually looked into these matters using objective tests. As an example, in one case seriously ill patients were prayed for anonymously (ie, they didn’t know they were prayed for) and the clinical outcomes were exactly the same. When the patients were told they were being prayed for the outcomes were actually slightly worse – presumably because the patients thought, “dear god, this must be more serious than I thought” and reacted accordingly.   

Anyway, though you don’t seem to give a damn about crashing from fallacy to fallacy to fallacy despite having your mistakes explained to you, here’s a link that would put you straight if you didn’t just ignore it as you ignore everything else:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic

I agree - this does not constitute proof of God, or proof of the power of prayer, but it does constitute evidence.

Yes it does – evidence that you have almost no understanding logic, reason or human psychology. 

[torridon]

Yes - that is a very good example of thought processes which we do not have power to consciously manipulate, as opposed to those we have when we are awake.

thanks, Gordon 

So does that mean when we are asleep, the soul is also having a nap ?

[Alan Burns]

Can you deal with the infinite regress problem rather than shooting your feet off with both barrels?

There is no infinite regress, NS.  The buck stops with you - you are not a machine.

It is quite simple.

You live and act in the present, with the freedom to choose what you want to do, how to do it and when to do it.  We are not driven by the past.  There is nothing which can predict the choice you are about to make - it is entirely up to you.  It is the freedom every healthy human being enjoys.  The fact that we can't come up with a physical or logical explanation for such freedom can't take it away.  It is the reality we all live in and enjoy.  There is nothing random about our choices - they are the choices we consciously invoke.  We think of something and we do it.

[Stranger]

There is no infinite regress, NS.

There quite clearly is, and just denying it doesn't make it go away.

The buck stops with you - you are not a machine.

Regardless of the baseless assertion, you do have a mind and that mind changes its state over time and is therefore either operating as a deterministic system or it isn't (which means randomness).

You live and act in the present...

Logically irrelevant gibberish.

...with the freedom to choose what you want to do, how to do it and when to do it.

But you can't choose your wants without the infinite regress: you choose what you want according to what you want to want, and choose that according to what you want to want to want, so on.

The fact that we can't come up with a physical or logical explanation for such freedom can't take it away.

You have provided not one hint of a reason to think it exists at all (baseless assertions aside). You said you could back this up with logic, you can't do that if it's logically self-contradictory.

There is nothing random about our choices - they are the choices we consciously invoke.  We think of something and we do it.

So why do you think of one thing rather than a different thing? Because you want to? Because it springs to mind? Either those things come from the past, they are (partly) random, or we end up in the infinite regress.

You appear to be living in a simplistic fantasy world, in which you've clung on to the most superficial of intuitive feelings about how things are, without any hint of rational, logical thought or honest introspection at all.

And you have still not given the first hint of a logical reason to accept that this contradictory notion of freedom exists, and you've admitted that there is no logical explanation - which is because it's self-contradictory - so isn't it about time you admitted that you have no logic and this is all just blind faith?

[Alan Burns]

There quite clearly is, and just denying it doesn't make it go away.

It is undeniable reality which makes it go away

Regardless of the baseless assertion, you do have a mind and that mind changes its state over time and is therefore either operating as a deterministic system or it isn't (which means randomness).

I have a mind, yes, and it changes according to my wishes.

Logically irrelevant gibberish.

To deny that we live and act in the present is denying reality.

But you can't choose your wants without the infinite regress ....

My conscious choice is not an infinite regress - it is a defining cause.

You have provided not one hint of a reason to think it exists at all (baseless assertions aside). You said you could back this up with logic, you can't do that if it's logically self-contradictory.

Our conscious freedom is a demonstrable reality - of course it exists'
No amount of short sighted logic can remove this freedom.  If you can't explain it you have to conclude that it is beyond your understanding.

So why do you think of one thing rather than a different thing?

I can only think of one thing at a time.

Because you want to? Because it springs to mind? Either those things come from the past, they are (partly) random, or we end up in the infinite regress.

What I think is determined by me - not by the past - no infinite regress.

You appear to be living in a simplistic fantasy world, in which you've clung on to the most superficial of intuitive feelings about how things are, without any hint of rational, logical thought or honest introspection at all.

I have thought very deeply about the reality we exist in, and my ability to do so aptly confirms my freedom to think such thoughts.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It is undeniable reality which makes it go away

“It’s magic innit” isn’t undeniable reality. It’s just incoherence.

I have a mind, yes, and it changes according to my wishes.

So you think you have a mind that decides on its own wishes, and then changes because of those wishes?

Did you really mean to say that?

To deny that we live and act in the present is denying reality.

No, to deny the more plausible explanation given to us by reason and experimentation is the actual denial of reality.

My conscious choice is not an infinite regress - it is a defining cause.

So where do the wants that determine that choice come from?

Our conscious freedom is a demonstrable reality - of course it exists'

Just saying “of course it exists” because it just feels that way isn’t a demonstration. If you think you have the demonstrable reality, then – finally – actually demonstrate it. 

No amount of short sighted logic can remove this freedom.

And calling logic “short-sighted” because falsifies your privileging of opinion over fact doesn’t make it so. If you think the logic ranged against you is short-sighted nonetheless, then – finally – provide some logic of your own that shows it to be wrong.
   

If you can't explain it you have to conclude that it is beyond your understanding.

Explain what – your car crash of a definition of “freedom”? How about, “doesn’t exist at all” rather than just assuming it to be real but “beyond understanding”? 

I can only think of one thing at a time.

Then try your wife – I’m told women can multi-task better than we can.

What I think is determined by me - not by the past - no infinite regress.

Except of course if it’s “determined by me” then it must happen either deterministically or randomly. Just citing magical thinking to get you off that hook is rhetorical gibberish.

I have thought very deeply about the reality we exist in,…

Then you’re very, very bad at thinking. I know this because you commit several fallacies each time to attempt a reply. Combine that with your fundamental dishonesty in never bothering to address the problem when it's identified for you and we have a cocktail of mindless superstition and mendacity. 

… and my ability to do so aptly confirms my freedom to think such thoughts.

Only if you seriously think that the basic fallacy of circular reasoning is a good argument.

Oh, and I just explained a few posts back why you’d fallen into the availability heuristic by the way and, as ever, I see you just ignored that too.

What does this behaviour say about you do you think?

[Stranger]

It is undeniable reality which makes it go away
...
I have a mind, yes, and it changes according to my wishes.
...
To deny that we live and act in the present is denying reality.
...
My conscious choice is not an infinite regress - it is a defining cause.
...
Our conscious freedom is a demonstrable reality - of course it exists'
No amount of short sighted logic can remove this freedom.  If you can't explain it you have to conclude that it is beyond your understanding.
...
I can only think of one thing at a time.
...
What I think is determined by me - not by the past - no infinite regress.
...
I have thought very deeply about the reality we exist in...

The inane, thought-free, childish foot-stamping that preceded the last line is evidence that you have done no such thing. If you had, you'd be able to offer substantive, logical counterarguments.

...and my ability to do so aptly confirms my freedom to think such thoughts.

Yet again: in what way does your ability to think such thoughts require the self-contradictory 'ability' to have been able to think differently without randomness? Why does anything anybody does need this nonsense?

Anyway, either you can engage with the reasoned arguments you've been given or you can go on stamping your foot and just insisting that your thought-free, simplistic intuition is "undeniable reality", but if you're going to do the latter, at least have the basic human honesty to admit that you have no logic.

Or are you just a barefaced liar?

[Alan Burns]

Or are you just a barefaced liar?

Is it a lie to witness to the essential freedom needed to wilfully commit a barefaced lie?

[Stranger]

Is it a lie to witness to the essential freedom needed to wilfully commit a barefaced lie?

As you have been told many, many times, nobody is denying the freedom needed to be a barefaced liar, Alan. To suggest they are looks rather like a barefaced lie.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Is it a lie to witness to the essential freedom needed to wilfully commit a barefaced lie?

I don't know how "barefaced" it is, but it is a type of lie to claim to have logic to justify your beliefs but never to produce it no matter how many times you're asked to do so. Here's what would be honest instead:

"Like other people, I feel as though there's an independent "I" that has agency over my thoughts and actions. I cannot justify this version of reality with reason or evidence or logic, but it feels that way to me nonetheless. I choose moreover to privilege this experience of "free" will by calling it the explanation for free will, even though I know nothing about how that could be and even though reason and evidence and logic indicate that this narrative must be false. Yours, Alan Burns."

See? That's all it would take finally to shine a little honesty into your life. Believe me, you'd feel a lot better for it too.

You're welcome.           

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB,

I don't know how "barefaced" it is, but it is a type of lie to claim to have logic to justify your beliefs but never to produce it no matter how many times you're asked to do so. Here's what would be honest instead:

"Like other people, I feel as though there's an independent "I" that has agency over my thoughts and actions. I cannot justify this version of reality with reason or evidence or logic
         

Reason or evidence or logic have nothing to do with it.

It's your arse clenching commitment to eliminative materialism and a shit understanding of emergence that stop you from acknowledging the obviousness of the phenomenon of the self.

[Alan Burns]

As you have been told many, many times, nobody is denying the freedom needed to be a barefaced liar, Alan. To suggest they are looks rather like a barefaced lie.

Can you not see the obvious truth that the freedom needed to wilfully commit a lie cannot exist within the past events you claim determines what I do?  I do not have conscious control over past events - only the present.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Reason or evidence or logic have nothing to do with it.

They have everything to do with it. If not for reason and logic, how else would you propose that you justify your beliefs – to anyone else or to yourself?

Oh will you look at me… I’m only asking exactly the same question again that you’ve been running away from for years. What am I like eh?

It's your arse clenching commitment to eliminative materialism and a shit understanding of emergence that stop you from acknowledging the obviousness of the phenomenon of the self.

I assume in that car crash of ad hom, misunderstanding of basic terms, flat out lying and irrelevance there was at least some kind of thought to begin with? No? Oh ok, maybe not then.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Quick tip for you. Whenever you begin a paragraph with "Can you not see the obvious truth..." what you're actually saying is something like, "OK I have no arguments to counter yours so I'll fall back on an appeal to the way things seem being the way things necessarily are in the hope that no-one notices".

You were rumbled on that one long ago old son - you need to up your game.   

[Stranger]

Can you not see the obvious truth that the freedom needed to wilfully commit a lie cannot exist within the past events you claim determines what I do?  I do not have conscious control over past events - only the present.

"It's obvious innit?" is not a logical argument (especially when it isn't for reasons that have been explained to you countless times before and you just ignore). Either you have a logical argument (and now is the time to produce it), you were mistaken when you claimed you had (and now is the time to admit it), or you were lying.

Which was it?

[Alan Burns]

"It's obvious innit?" is not a logical argument (especially when it isn't for reasons that have been explained to you countless times before and you just ignore). Either you have a logical argument (and now is the time to produce it), you were mistaken when you claimed you had (and now is the time to admit it), or you were lying.

Which was it?

There is a perfectly logical argument behind the obvious truth I put forward.
I ask again:
You claim that everything I do is entirely dictated by past events.
You also claim that I have the capacity to make blatant lies.
So please tell me how I can wilfully tell a deliberate lie when I have no conscious control over the events which determine what you deem to be a blatant lie?

[Gordon]

There is a perfectly logical argument behind the obvious truth I put forward.

Let's be having it then: we wait with bated breath.

I ask again:
You claim that everything I do is entirely dictated by past events.

It might not feel like that but that is probably the case - even when you think you are thinking 'now', that 'now' is already history. Moreover, unless you are having spontaneous random thoughts, all aspects of your mental experiences will have antecedents: be they previous events, memories of previous experiences, circumstances in the near past, established personal traits etc - and all moderated by the knowledge and language you've acquired prior to the matter under consideration.

You also claim that I have the capacity to make blatant lies.

We all have, even when we don't intend to lie or even realise that we are lying: have a look at mental defence mechanisms.

So please tell me how I can wilfully tell a deliberate lie when I have no conscious control over the events which determine what you deem to be a blatant lie?

I, for one, don't think you are lying, Alan: I think you are wrong, albeit sincerely wrong, but I do think you have difficulty acknowledging and processing rebuttals where these undermine your faith beliefs (again, have a look at mental defence mechanisms).

[Alan Burns]

Let's be having it then: we wait with bated breath.

It might not feel like that but that is probably the case - even when you think you are thinking 'now', that 'now' is already history. Moreover, unless you are having spontaneous random thoughts, all aspects of your mental experiences will have antecedents: be they previous events, memories of previous experiences, circumstances in the near past, established personal traits etc - and all moderated by the knowledge and language you've acquired prior to the matter under consideration.

We all have, even when we don't intend to lie or even realise that we are lying: have a look at mental defence mechanisms.

I, for one, don't think you are lying, Alan: I think you are wrong, albeit sincerely wrong, but I do think you have difficulty acknowledging and processing rebuttals where these undermine your faith beliefs (again, have a look at mental defence mechanisms).

None of this explains how I can make an intentional lie when I am entirely determined by the past.

[Gordon]

None of this explains how I can make an intentional lie when I am entirely determined by the past.

Don't be silly: telling a lie is just a mental process and you have the biological equipment to support a decision to tell a lie just as you have the biological equipment to decide to buy a surprise for you wife.

There is nothing fantastical about thinking - it's just biology doing what it does.

[torridon]

You live and act in the present, with the freedom to choose what you want to do, how to do it and when to do it.  We are not driven by the past.  There is nothing which can predict the choice you are about to make - it is entirely up to you.  It is the freedom every healthy human being enjoys.  The fact that we can't come up with a physical or logical explanation for such freedom can't take it away.  It is the reality we all live in and enjoy.  There is nothing random about our choices - they are the choices we consciously invoke.  We think of something and we do it.

If there is nothing random about our conscious choices, as you say, then this means they are deterministic, which I would agree with; that is what 'not random' means, hence our choices are predictable, in principle.  We might not have the computing power to predict in detail, but nonetheless your claim that our choices are not random is the claim that our choices are predictable.  The freedom we enjoy is due to the absence of any coercion or restriction stopping us from exercising our will. You actually agree with me on the deterministic nature of human will, but you are just in denial about it.

[torridon]

There is a perfectly logical argument behind the obvious truth I put forward.
I ask again:
You claim that everything I do is entirely dictated by past events.
You also claim that I have the capacity to make blatant lies.
So please tell me how I can wilfully tell a deliberate lie when I have no conscious control over the events which determine what you deem to be a blatant lie?

We cannot change the past. We make our choices in the present moment in the context of what we have already learned.  If you see a road sign in Japanese you might end up taking the wrong road because you have not already learned Japanese. The choice to lie rather than be honest is also informed by what we have learned in the past, you ought to know already that lying is not consistent with being a follower of Jesus.  So, if you 'wilfully tell a deliberate lie' that reveals that in those cases and in those moments, your desire to lie is greater than your desire to follow the Christian path.  It's true that we cannot choose which desires to have in present moment, however each new moment is a new moment of learning that will be factored in to future choices.  All your ducking and diving is inconsistent with principled straightforward engagement with others, so when we pull you up on those behaviours, we are hoping the chastisement will bring about more honest engagement from you in the future.

[SusanDoris]

For crying out loud, Alan, grow up and drop the cloyingly infantile incredulity - you have no idea just how silly you look when you post stuff like this.

Very strongly agree.

[Stranger]

There is a perfectly logical argument behind the obvious truth I put forward.

Where is it then?

And I'm not going to answer your question again because it's been answered many, many times, it's an obvious distraction tactic that you use when it becomes clear that you have no logic and you've been less than honest, and it's incredibly hypocritical of you to go on demanding answers (which you then ignore), when you continually run away from any awkward questions you don't want to answer.

So let's be having this "perfectly logical argument" then, the suspense is killing me...

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

There is a perfectly logical argument behind the obvious truth I put forward.

At last! Fantastic. OK then, I’m all settled in with a fresh cup of tea and a nice garibaldi. Go for it – what is this “perfectly logical argument” you’ve been promising for so long? Remember by the way that just using words like “obvious” and “demonstrable” does not mean that you clam is obvious, and nor that you’ve demonstrated anything. To do these things you need an actual argument – that is, one or more premises that lead to a conclusion by means of logical implication (a process called logical inference).

Just now all you have is the unqualified assertion that the experience of something must also be the explanation for it – the argument to take your from the former to the latter is missing. If you can finally do it though I’ll doff my cap to you, as will the Nobel prize committee (well, the Templeton prize committee at least).

Good luck!

[Alan Burns]

Don't be silly: telling a lie is just a mental process and you have the biological equipment to support a decision to tell a lie just as you have the biological equipment to decide to buy a surprise for you wife.

There is nothing fantastical about thinking - it's just biology doing what it does.

Machines whose actions are determined by past events are incapable of telling deliberate lies.  But I am not just a biological machine.  I am capable of telling deliberate lies, as we all are.  Such capability can only be determined by something which acts in the present - not determined by the past.  Anything determined by the past will inevitably be an unavoidable reaction to the past.  Unavoidable reactions can never be classed as deliberate lies.