Searching for GOD...

[BeRational]

It is the only now I, or you, will ever know.

That's what we seem to experience but we already know that we are wrong.

Our intuitive idea about a universal now has been shown to be wrong.

If you have ever used GPS you should know this.

[Stranger]

It is where my conscious awareness exists, perceives and acts.

This really is mindless nonsense. An act is a change of state at a point in time, as is a perception. What's more your attempt to define "the present" is contrived and circular.

[Alan Burns]

This really is mindless nonsense. An act is a change of state at a point in time, as is a perception. What's more your attempt to define "the present" is contrived and circular.

How can my conscious awareness be a change of state?
I perceive changes in state, but the entity of perception, which is me, remains in a state of awareness.

[torridon]

How can my conscious awareness be a change of state?
I perceive changes in state, but the entity of perception, which is me, remains in a state of awareness.

Drop something on your toe, the resulting pain is a change in your state of awareness.  It's gone from painless to painful, that is a change in state, you are now in pain, a new state of being.

[Stranger]

How can my conscious awareness be a change of state?
I perceive changes in state, but the entity of perception, which is me, remains in a state of awareness.

Are you even serious any more? Becoming aware of something is a change of state. You perceive something, it enters your conscious mind and your mind changes its state from not having perceived it to having perceived it. Every thought and every emotion that goes through your conscious mind are changes in state. Every choice you make changes your mind's state from not having decided to having made a choice. The state of your mind at the moment is being changed by reading these words.

Have you completely misunderstood? The states I was talking about in #40759 were abstract but applied to minds they include everything that goes into choice-making (acts of "free will"), so literally everything that is in your mind at this particular second, which was different to the last second, and the one before that.

[Alan Burns]

Are you even serious any more? Becoming aware of something is a change of state. You perceive something, it enters your conscious mind and your mind changes its state from not having perceived it to having perceived it. Every thought and every emotion that goes through your conscious mind are changes in state. Every choice you make changes your mind's state from not having decided to having made a choice. The state of your mind at the moment is being changed by reading these words.

Have you completely misunderstood? The states I was talking about in #40759 were abstract but applied to minds they include everything that goes into choice-making (acts of "free will"), so literally everything that is in your mind at this particular second, which was different to the last second, and the one before that.

If you are in a place with no light and no sound,
You will be aware of the darkness
You will be aware of the silence
No change in state required

[Outrider]

If you are in a place with no light and no sound,
You will be aware of the darkness
You will be aware of the silence
No change in state required

You weren't aware, then you were... state changed.

O.

[torridon]

How can my conscious awareness be a change of state?
I perceive changes in state, but the entity of perception, which is me, remains in a state of awareness.

Maybe you are mixing up 'awareness', the process, with the contents of your awareness, the things that you are aware of.

[Alan Burns]

You weren't aware, then you were... state changed.

O.

I will continue to be aware of silence and darkness without any change of state.
Awareness itself is not a change of state.
We can be aware of changes, and we can be aware of no change.

[Stranger]

If you are in a place with no light and no sound,
You will be aware of the darkness
You will be aware of the silence
No change in state required

Which totally ignores the point. The contents of your awareness don't change if and only if its inputs are constant but your awareness of how long such a state has lasted will be a (gradual) change of state. Regardless of that, do you stop having thoughts just because your environment is constant? Your awareness of the environment is just one passive part of the state of your mind. It can't have thoughts or make choices. As I said (and you ignored): every thought and every emotion that goes through your conscious mind are changes in state.

We are talking about "free will" choices and those require thoughts and a final choice, all of which are changes in the state of your mind.

[Outrider]

I will continue to be aware of silence and darkness without any change of state.

Every time you think about - every time you manifest that awareness - you are changing state.  Awareness is not a static thing, it's something happening - you aren't 'something that is aware', you are 'being aware'.

O.

[Enki]

If you are in a place with no light and no sound,
You will be aware of the darkness
You will be aware of the silence
No change in state required

The Horizon experiment of a few years ago(which was a rerun of an earlier experiment), when six people where put into a darkened room with half of the group being totally isolated from any stimulus for 48 hours, seemed to show the opposite of what you suggest. Awareness of silence and darkness and lack of stimulation led to the mind to create hallucinations to fill in the sensory gap. Prof Ian Robbins suggested that, in the absence of information, the human brain carries on working and processing information that it creates itself, which suggests strongly that this is a continuous and changing process which is continually adapting to sensory inputs, either real or imagined. Conscious awareness doesn't seem to be static at all.

[torridon]

The Horizon experiment of a few years ago(which was a rerun of an earlier experiment), when six people where put into a darkened room with half of the group being totally isolated from any stimulus for 48 hours, seemed to show the opposite of what you suggest. Awareness of silence and darkness and lack of stimulation led to the mind to create hallucinations to fill in the sensory gap. Prof Ian Robbins suggested that, in the absence of information, the human brain carries on working and processing information that it creates itself, which suggests strongly that this is a continuous and changing process which is continually adapting to sensory inputs, either real or imagined. Conscious awareness doesn't seem to be static at all.

I think that might help explain why we have dreams, too.  It seems to me our minds have a deep urge to create narrative, and when we are awake our conscious experience is the narrative created from melding our sensory inputs.  When asleep, there is no novel input but the mind, so driven to create narrative, takes pretty much random input from memories and deeper subconscious hopes and fears as its source material.

[Enki]

I think that might help explain why we have dreams, too.  It seems to me our minds have a deep urge to create narrative, and when we are awake our conscious experience is the narrative created from melding our sensory inputs.  When asleep, there is no novel input but the mind, so driven to create narrative, takes pretty much random input from memories and deeper subconscious hopes and fears as its source material.

Indeed, I would agree. I believe there has been some work done on patterns of nerve firing in the brain's EM field which seems to show that there is much more co-ordination/synchronization in nerve firing with a conscious state than with an unconscious state where the same nerves tend to fire asynchronously.

[Alan Burns]

(I am transferring this reply from another thread due to the content, which is more appropriate to this SFG thread)

What you do presume though is that you have some profound knowledge of something you also claim is "beyond human understanding", which is a very silly position to adopt.

Yes, I do have a profound knowledge of God and His creation and His love.
God and His works are certainly beyond human understanding, but that does not imply that God does not exist.
It is not silly to acknowledge the existence of something beyond your understanding.
My certainty that God exists is based on far more than our gift of free will.
My gift of free will just opens the door to prayer and devotion which brings us into intimate knowledge of God and His love for us.

[Gordon]

(I am transferring this reply from another thread due to the content, which is more appropriate to this SFG thread)
Yes, I do have a profound knowledge of God and His creation and His love.

You may have knowledge about what the belief systems say about 'God': that is not the same thing as claiming 'God' as an item of knowledge. Bear in mind too that the content of these belief systems have been produced by people.

God and His works are certainly beyond human understanding, but that does not imply that God does not exist.

Then by your own definition you don't have a clue that what you think can be known to be true since it is beyond your understanding. Nobody is saying 'God' doesn't exist: what they are saying is there are no good reasons to think it does, so stop misrepresenting on a point that has been explained many times.

It is not silly to acknowledge the existence of something beyond your understanding.

On the contrary: it would be extremely silly to make substantive claims about something that you acknowledge you don't understand.

My certainty that God exists is based on far more than our gift of free will.

Then your certainty is certainly misplaced.

My gift of free will just opens the door to prayer and devotion which brings us into intimate knowledge of God and His love for us.

I think that is just you, Alan, given your susceptibility to flowery theobabble.

[Roses]

(I am transferring this reply from another thread due to the content, which is more appropriate to this SFG thread)
Yes, I do have a profound knowledge of God and His creation and His love.
God and His works are certainly beyond human understanding, but that does not imply that God does not exist.
It is not silly to acknowledge the existence of something beyond your understanding.
My certainty that God exists is based on far more than our gift of free will.
My gift of free will just opens the door to prayer and devotion which brings us into intimate knowledge of God and His love for us.

Your 'profound knowledge', is what you wish to believe is true without a shred of evidence to support it.

What love? There is absolutely NOTHING loving about the Biblical god character.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Yes, I do have a profound knowledge of God and His creation and His love.

No, you have a profound belief that you have “knowledge of God and His creation and His love”. So far at least though you’ve been unwilling or unable to provide a cogent argument to justify that belief so – for now at least – it's is epistemically equivalent to my belief in leprechauns.

God and His works are certainly beyond human understanding,…

But in the last sentence you claimed to have a “profound knowledge of God” etc. Which is it – a god beyond human understanding or a god about which you have a profound knowledge?

You can’t have both.   

…but that does not imply that God does not exist.

That fallacy is called the straw man. No-one has suggested that your positing of a god “beyond human understanding” itself implies that this supposed god doesn’t exist. There are plenty of other reasons though to conclude that there’s no reason to think it does exist. 
 

It is not silly to acknowledge the existence of something beyond your understanding.

Yes it is. You can’t “acknowledge” something there’s no good reason to think is there at all. You can call the conjecture “beyond human understanding” if you like but that’s irrelevant to your basic problem of justifying the claim. 
 

My certainty that God exists is based on far more than our gift of free will.

Yes, we know – blind faith. If you think you can make an argument to justify your certainty that isn’t plainly wrong though then by all means give it a try.
 

My gift of free will just opens the door to prayer and devotion which brings us into intimate knowledge of God and His love for us.

A faith assertion that no doubt you find comforting, but that provides no good reason to think you’re right about that.

[ekim]

I think that might help explain why we have dreams, too.  It seems to me our minds have a deep urge to create narrative, and when we are awake our conscious experience is the narrative created from melding our sensory inputs.  When asleep, there is no novel input but the mind, so driven to create narrative, takes pretty much random input from memories and deeper subconscious hopes and fears as its source material.

I spent some time in a sensory deprivation chamber.  I remember that once deprived of sensory stimulus to feed upon the mind seemed to want to create its own stimulus and my first thought was - what if the building catches fire and the other occupants forget I am in the chamber, I shall be boiled alive.  However, with perseverance, this and other thoughts and emotions ceased their activities and the 'observing' consciousness remained free from any stimulus.  I suppose one could say that it was like deep dreamless sleep but instead of being unconscious, consciousness prevailed.  This is what many meditation processes tend towards and anybody who has attempted them will know how difficult it is to be free from the mind's apparent agenda.

[Outrider]

(I am transferring this reply from another thread due to the content, which is more appropriate to this SFG thread)Yes, I do have a profound knowledge of God and His creation and His love.

How can you be confident in this, given the well documented liabilities of the human mind? We have fairly conclusively shown that human beings, in isolation, are fundamentally flawed observer in a number of ways, and we have to design our quests for knowledge carefully to try to eliminate or reduce those limitations.  What have you done to eliminate your own, say, confirmation bias?

God and His works are certainly beyond human understanding, but that does not imply that God does not exist.

It's one possible explanation that fits the evidence, though.  As to whether the natural world is beyond human understanding... four or five centuries ago, significantly more of it was 'beyond human understanding' than is the case now, and there's justification in thinking that at least some more of it will be understood in the future than is now.   Is it that the world is beyond CURRENT understanding, or do you have a basis for presuming that something about reality is inherently beyond the human capacity to investigate? If so, why?

It is not silly to acknowledge the existence of something beyond your understanding.

Whether or not I understand it isn't what determines whether or not it's silly to acknowledge it; whether or not there's evidence to support the claim.  I don't fully understand quantum theory, but it seems evident to me that there's something there.  I don't fully understand Higgs Bosons, but gravity is an observable phenomenon.

What makes it silly to 'acknowledge the existence' of god is that there's no evidence for it.   There's nothing that conclusively proves there isn't a god, it remains technically a possibility, but there is a space between acceptance of the idea and the presumption that it's therefore the case.

My certainty that God exists is based on far more than our gift of free will.

Well that's lucky, given your inability to explain how that could even be a thing, let alone demonstrate that actually is a thing.

My gift of free will just opens the door to prayer and devotion which brings us into intimate knowledge of God and His love for us.

Wow, a perfect trifecta of unevidenced nothing - free will, prayers and gods... did you want to throw in Bigfoot and morphic resonance for a Full House?

O.

[torridon]

I assume that my sense of reality is the same as for any other human being.
A sense in which our freedom to choose is a reality rather than an illusion.
So do you put your faith in a presumed logic which denies this freedom?
Or can you accept that this sense of freedom is a reality which is beyond human understanding?

Your claim of freedom would be beyond human understanding in the same way that a four sided triangle would be beyond human understanding.  All you have is a sense of freedom, sure, we all feel like that, but that is not going to cut it when you realise that the claim of freedom is inherently incoherent.

This young chappie explains it quite well :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwaXqep-bpk&app=desktop

[Alan Burns]

Your claim of freedom would be beyond human understanding in the same way that a four sided triangle would be beyond human understanding.  All you have is a sense of freedom, sure, we all feel like that, but that is not going to cut it when you realise that the claim of freedom is inherently incoherent.

This young chappie explains it quite well :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwaXqep-bpk&app=desktop

Just watched this and it would appear to be a young Torri repeating all the arguments he has put forward on this forum to claim that you can't choose your own "wants".

I find the quoted example of choosing between vanilla or chocolate excruciatingly trivial when compared to essential freedom needed to guide our thoughts to contemplate the reality behind our existence.  I suppose the conclusions made in this video are inevitable if you choose to ignore the possibility and nature and evidence for our spiritual self.  So if you want to ignore evidence of your own spirituality you will reach these conclusions - but can you use your freedom to contemplate the possibility and implications of your freedom being a reality?

[Alan Burns]

How can you be confident in this, given the well documented liabilities of the human mind? We have fairly conclusively shown that human beings, in isolation, are fundamentally flawed observer in a number of ways, and we have to design our quests for knowledge carefully to try to eliminate or reduce those limitations.  What have you done to eliminate your own, say, confirmation bias?

I can't doubt the existence of a being with whom I have a personal relationship.

It's one possible explanation that fits the evidence, though.  As to whether the natural world is beyond human understanding... four or five centuries ago, significantly more of it was 'beyond human understanding' than is the case now, and there's justification in thinking that at least some more of it will be understood in the future than is now.   Is it that the world is beyond CURRENT understanding, or do you have a basis for presuming that something about reality is inherently beyond the human capacity to investigate? If so, why?

From what I see, every scientific discovery throws up more mysteries than it solves.

Whether or not I understand it isn't what determines whether or not it's silly to acknowledge it; whether or not there's evidence to support the claim.  I don't fully understand quantum theory, but it seems evident to me that there's something there.  I don't fully understand Higgs Bosons, but gravity is an observable phenomenon.

What makes it silly to 'acknowledge the existence' of god is that there's no evidence for it.   There's nothing that conclusively proves there isn't a god, it remains technically a possibility, but there is a space between acceptance of the idea and the presumption that it's therefore the case.

You claim no evidence.
I see overwhelming evidence.
We can't both be right.

Well that's lucky, given your inability to explain how that could even be a thing, let alone demonstrate that actually is a thing.

Why do I need to explain it when I can demonstrate it (free will that is).

Wow, a perfect trifecta of unevidenced nothing - free will, prayers and gods... did you want to throw in Bigfoot and morphic resonance for a Full House?

would I be able to pray without free will?
would I be able to pray if there was no God?
would I be able to pray if I did not have a spiritual self?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Just watched this and it would appear to be a young Torri repeating all the arguments he has put forward on this forum to claim that you can't choose your own "wants".

True or not, your problem though remains that you cannot rebut those arguments.

I find the quoted example of choosing between vanilla or chocolate excruciatingly trivial when compared to essential freedom needed to guide our thoughts to contemplate the reality behind our existence.

Which is completely irrelevant. The objects of the “choice” – ice creams vs “contemplating reality” has nothing whatever to do with whether or not the perception or choice and the actuality of it align.
 

I suppose the conclusions made in this video are inevitable if you choose to ignore the possibility and nature and evidence for our spiritual self.

Why do you persist with this dishonest misrepresentation when you’ve been corrected on it so many times? No-one ignores the possibility of anything – “our spiritual nature” and unicorns prancing about on Alpha Centauri included. Your problem though remains finding a logical path from a possibility to a probability. Write that down and keep writing it down until it finally sinks in.

So if you want to ignore evidence of your own spirituality…

What evidence? You haven’t provided any, and nor for that matter have you told us in a coherent manner what you even mean by “spirituality”.

…you will reach these conclusions –

No. You will “reach these conclusions” if you bother to engage with the reason and evidence that leads to them. Your unreasoned and un-evidenced assertions on the other hand are epistemically worthless.
 

…but can you use your freedom to contemplate the possibility and implications of your freedom being a reality?

See above. You can have an experience that feels like “using your freedom to contemplate etc” but, as so often, feelings and reason-based conclusions are different. Unfortunately, all you have is the former. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I can't doubt the existence of a being with whom I have a personal relationship.

You have no idea whether you have a “personal relationship”. You just believe that you do.

From what I see, every scientific discovery throws up more mysteries than it solves.

Not “every”, but even if that was true so what? That should just tell you that there’s more to discover.

You claim no evidence.
I see overwhelming evidence.
We can't both be right.

No, but for as long as you choose to keep this supposed evidence a secret there’s no reason to think you’re right.

Why do I need to explain it when I can demonstrate it (free will that is).

If you claim to be able to demonstrate it then – finally – actually demonstrate it. So far all you’ve given us is mindless assertion – when (and how) do you propose to do some actual demonstrating?

would I be able to pray without free will?

Yes.

would I be able to pray if there was no God?

Obviously, yes.

would I be able to pray if I did not have a spiritual self?

Also obviously, yes.