Searching for GOD...

[torridon]

The prime example of thinking up a reason not to believe in God is to try to deny your own freedom to do so.

This is just using your characteristic illogic to try a reversal of the burden of proof.  You and straightforward honest thinking seem to be complete strangers.

To try to think of reasons to not believe in God is logically fatuous - the burden falls to people who make positive claims of theism.  So, you are free to make such claims (because we live in a free country, not because we have irrational supernatural powers) and others are free to question and criticise those claims.
 
Similarly, free will is your positive claim, whilst others critique that claim.  You claim God, you claim free will; I retort that there is neither evidence nor reason in support of either claim.  What you claim as evidence in support fails, for instance when challenged for evidence of free will, you just give us evidence of will, as if that were the same thing, as if you really do not understand the distinction after all this time

[torridon]

However you are free to choose which "wants" to indulge in.
We cannot chose our basic desires, but we are free to choose how to satisfy those desires.
Perhaps you do not recognise the most fundamental of all human desires - to love and be loved.
Can love be defined within your cold "cause and effect" deterministic scenario in which we have no conscious power to choose?

All this shows is that you still have not understood this issue even after all these years and after hundreds of posts explaining it to you.  You cannot admit on the one hand that we cannot choose which desires to have and then immediately go on to claim that we can choose which desires to have.  Just changing one word, from choose to indulge is all you've done, like a sleight of hand to disguise the illogic of your position. I can no more choose whether to like the taste of strawberry than I can choose what it tastes like. These things are not within my control and neither are they within yours.  This is simply psychological insight into how minds work, mine, yours, everybody's, and you can only deny this reality through schemes of fatuous illogical misdirection and nonsense.  There is nothing wrong with speaking the truth Alan.

[Alan Burns]

Alan, nobody can possibly demonstrate free will (in the sense of being able to have done differently). Suggesting they can is either dishonest or incredibly stupid.

How can I demonstrate that I could have written different words from the ones I'm choosing to write now, in exactly the same circumstance?

It is aptly demonstrated by absolute improbability that the content of your posts and mine could have been entirely defined by past events which are outside your conscious control - you can't control the past.  Our ability to choose rather than react is a demonstrable reality - not a logical impossibility.

[torridon]

It is aptly demonstrated by absolute improbability that the content of your posts and mine could have been entirely defined by past events which are outside your conscious control - you can't control the past.  Our ability to choose rather than react is a demonstrable reality - not a logical impossibility.

Yes, we can choose, but we cannot choose freely in the irrational sense that you keep insisting which would mean us choosing without reference to any justification why we would choose one way and not another. We resolve choice by weighing rival options against each other to determine our preference

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It is aptly demonstrated by absolute improbability that the content of your posts and mine could have been entirely defined by past events which are outside your conscious control - you can't control the past.  Our ability to choose rather than react is a demonstrable reality - not a logical impossibility.

Why do you just ignore every explanation you're given for why this is wrong?

Can you think of any other type of belief you have about which, if you were given rebuttals to your justifications for it, you wouldn't try to deal with those arguments? If, say, you sad said something like "I believe Henry VIII had five wives" and someone said, "here are the records that show he had six" chances are you'd look at the evidence and either rebut it (eg, show that the records of one marriage were fakes) or you'd change your mind. With your faith beliefs though no matter how many times your justifications for them are rebutted you just ignore all the arguments and repeat endlessly the equivalent of "I believe Henry VIII had five wives".

Why do you suppose you behave this way?     

[Alan Burns]

Yes, we can choose, but we cannot choose freely in the irrational sense that you keep insisting which would mean us choosing without reference to any justification why we would choose one way and not another. We resolve choice by weighing rival options against each other to determine our preference

Yes, the justification and preference is all done within our present state of conscious awareness, where we have the conscious freedom to reference, to weigh up, to contemplate and to ultimately invoke our consciously determined choice.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Why do you just ignore every explanation you're given for why this is wrong?

Can you think of any other type of belief you have about which, if you were given rebuttals to your justifications for it, you wouldn't try to deal with those arguments? If, say, you sad said something like "I believe Henry VIII had five wives" and someone said, "here are the records that show he had six" chances are you'd look at the evidence and either rebut it (eg, show that the records of one marriage were fakes) or you'd change your mind. With your faith beliefs though no matter how many times your justifications for them are rebutted you just ignore all the arguments and repeat endlessly the equivalent of "I believe Henry VIII had five wives".

Why do you suppose you behave this way?     

The evidence I see in your posts and others shows your own conscious freedom to accuse me of various deliberations which I could only invoke through my own conscious freedom.  The more rebuttals I receive, the more evidence I see for consciously driven freedom to make such rebuttals.

[Stranger]

Yes, the justification and preference is all done within our present state of conscious awareness...

Why do you just go on mindlessly repeating this idiotic gibberish? Repeating gibberish over and over again, is not going to magically make it make sense.

It is aptly demonstrated by absolute improbability...

Your baseless assertion about a supposed "improbability", does not mean that something has been demonstrated.

...that the content of your posts and mine could have been entirely defined by past events which are outside your conscious control - you can't control the past.  Our ability to choose rather than react is a demonstrable reality - not a logical impossibility.

Once again, completely ignoring all the times this has been explained to you. It is you who is the result of past events (nature, nurture, and experience) and it is you who make the choice according to who you are.

Events can be both within your conscious control and entirely defined by past events.

Regardless of that, you didn't even attempt to answer the actual question: how can I demonstrate that I could have written different words from the ones I'm choosing to write now, in exactly the same circumstance?

You seem to be having trouble understanding the word 'demonstrate' - perhaps you should ask the person who took your MENSA test (whether that's literally somebody else or not).

[torridon]

Yes, the justification and preference is all done within our present state of conscious awareness, where we have the conscious freedom to reference, to weigh up, to contemplate and to ultimately invoke our consciously determined choice.

None of which validates your implied claim that we can choose what to like or what to believe. Being consciously aware of the taste of chocolate does not magically mean that I can decide that I like it or dislike it.  Your conscious awareness anyhow is derived from deeper memories, habits and preferences by subliminal brain function, not that you are anywhere near being able to grasp this judging by your previous posts.  Whatever is your conscious preference, in the moment of making a choice, must be there for a reason which must have derivation for it not to be random.

[Stranger]

The more rebuttals I receive, the more evidence I see for consciously driven freedom to make such rebuttals.

Yet again: how much things are "consciously driven" has no relevance whatsoever to whether a choice could have been different or not. The role of consciousness is simply irrelevant to your self-contradictory version of "freedom".

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The evidence I see in your posts and others shows your own conscious freedom to accuse me of various deliberations which I could only invoke through my own conscious freedom.  The more rebuttals I receive, the more evidence I see for consciously driven freedom to make such rebuttals.

Yes, I know you “see” that but that’s all you see because you won’t ever open the box with the explanations for why you’re wrong about that. Your justification for your beliefs is wholly superficial – it’s a description of a feeling that gives you a narrative that satisfies you, but that’s all it is. Unless you ever have the courage or the courtesy actually to address the arguments that undo you rather than satisfy yourself with the notion that, if arguments can be made at all (any arguments) then de facto you must be right you’ll be forever lost in your wrongness.     

Here’s the thing about that though: if you have any interest in justifying your beliefs to yourself (let alone in persuading anyone else to think you’re right) why wouldn’t you open the box? Why wouldn’t you finally review the arguments that falsify your a priori assertion “if you can make any argument at all I must be right” openly and honestly, and then try at least to show those arguments to be wrong? Just think – if you could do that rather than have your interlocutors tear their har out at your obduracy and incomprehension we’d be forced to say, “OK, you now have an argument in logic that shows us to be wrong so we must change position”. As it is though, all we have is your endless assertion of your belief, to which the only rational response can be “this guy has nothing of worth to say because he won’t deal with the problems he’s given himself”.     

What then do you expect to happen by just parading your closed-mindedness to rational people rather than to gullible ones?

[Outrider]

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

As a genuine comparison, isn't that exactly what a schizophrenic would say?  That you believe you have a personal relationship is an indicator of a personal relationship, but not proof.

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

Whereas religious claims not only throw up more questions, but don't actually answer the old ones, either.  Religious claims don't have any practical applications in the meantime.  Science doesn't claim to be finished, but I'm not aware of any religions that think there's more answers to come.

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

Except that when you cite your evidence it turns out to be personal incredulity, or sincere belief, or something equally ephemeral and, ultimately, entirely personal.  If something is evidence FOR YOU, then it's not evidence.  Evidence is independent of the observer.

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

If you could demonstrate it we wouldn't be having the discussion; unfortunately all you can do is manifest consciousness and claim it's free will despite it having been repeatedly pointed out to you that something cannot be both free and will, and so the concept has no meaning.

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?

Yes, of course you would.  Humanity has a virtually unlimited capacity to be wrong and do pointless things.

O.

[Alan Burns]

Events can be both within your conscious control and entirely defined by past events.

There can be no conscious control if I am entirely defined by past events.  Control is not reaction to past events.  Control is not defined by past events.  Control is achieved by conscious interaction with the present - not by reactions to the past, because we have no control over what has already happened.

[Outrider]

There can be no conscious control if I am entirely defined by past events.

Why not?  What there isn't is conscious control that is free of prior events, but there is still conscious control.

Control is not reaction to past events.

If it's not, then it's random, and that's not compatible with your depiction of 'will' nor with the observed phenomena.

Control is not defined by past events.

If it weren't, it wouldn't be control.

Control is achieved by conscious interaction with the present - not by reactions to the past, because we have no control over what has already happened.

But the consciousness that you're invoking is, itself, a product of prior activity.  Who you are is shaped by what you inherited and the experiences that have occurred between then and now.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

There can be no conscious control if I am entirely defined by past events.  Control is not reaction to past events.  Control is not defined by past events.  Control is achieved by conscious interaction with the present - not by reactions to the past, because we have no control over what has already happened.

But there can be an experience that’s indistinguishable from “conscious control” but that isn’t beset with all the incoherence, logical faux pas, internal contradictions and indifference to reason and evidence that your version requires.

Then again you’d know that already if you ever bothered or had the courage to come to grips with the arguments that explain it to you. 

[Alan Burns]

AB,

But there can be an experience that’s indistinguishable from “conscious control” but that isn’t beset with all the incoherence, logical faux pas, internal contradictions and indifference to reason and evidence that your version requires.

Then again you’d know that already if you ever bothered or had the courage to come to grips with the arguments that explain it to you.

The explanations and arguments given to me would be entirely relevant to machines which are entirely driven by cause and effect reactions to past events.  But I am not a machine.  I have a will of my own which I am using to actively demonstrate that I am not a machine by witnessing to the reality of my own freedom to choose, to think, to contemplate, to deduce, to dream, to imagine, to create, to compose, to pray, to evangelise, to discover, to argue, to assert, to search for the truth ...

[Outrider]

The explanations and arguments given to me would be entirely relevant to machines which are entirely driven by cause and effect reactions to past events.  But I am not a machine.

Based on what understanding?  What makes a machine a machine, and what makes you different?  You can't really suggest that it's free will at this point, because you're attempting to use the distinction between yourself and a machine to justify the claim that you exhibit free will and the machine doesn't...

I have a will of my own which I am using to actively demonstrate that I am not a machine by witnessing to the reality of my own freedom to choose, to think, to contemplate, to deduce, to dream, to imagine, to create, to compose, to pray, to evangelise, to discover, to argue, to assert .........

And if I were to programme a machine to articulate the same argument, you'd have a machine making the argument.  The fact that you can make the argument doesn't mean that you aren't a machine that's been programmed by experience to make the argument.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The explanations and arguments given to me would be entirely relevant to machines which are entirely driven by cause and effect reactions to past events.

Which in some senses is what we are, but ok…

But I am not a machine.  I have a will of my own which I am using to actively demonstrate that I am not a machine by witnessing to the reality of my own freedom to choose, to think, to contemplate, to deduce, to dream, to imagine, to create, to compose, to pray, to evangelise, to discover, to argue, to assert .........

And yet in the post you’re attempting to reply to I just explained that all of those experiential descriptions are also consistent with a deterministic model, but crucially that model isn’t beset with the overwhelming problems that are baked into your incoherent, self-contradictory, logically impossible, magic-reliant superstitious version. As to the person experiencing them the two models would feel exactly the same, why have you just ignored that and resorted again to reason-denying assertion?   

[torridon]

The explanations and arguments given to me would be entirely relevant to machines which are entirely driven by cause and effect reactions to past events.  But I am not a machine.  I have a will of my own which I am using to actively demonstrate that I am not a machine by witnessing to the reality of my own freedom to choose, to think, to contemplate, to deduce, to dream, to imagine, to create, to compose, to pray, to evangelise, to discover, to argue, to assert, to search for the truth ...

OK, you have a will of your own, but your will is not without derivation, if that were the case then your will would be random.  Your will is a channelling, a condensation, of all the inputs to you, it is unique to you, a unique arrangement of all the influences that have gone into making you what you are.  The same is true of every living being. We are all unique products of the various influences that have shaped us.

[Alan Burns]

Based on what understanding?  What makes a machine a machine, and what makes you different?  You can't really suggest that it's free will at this point, because you're attempting to use the distinction between yourself and a machine to justify the claim that you exhibit free will and the machine doesn't...

The essential complement to having free will is self awareness - from which our will emanates, which machines obviously do not possess.

And if I were to programme a machine to articulate the same argument, you'd have a machine making the argument.  The fact that you can make the argument doesn't mean that you aren't a machine that's been programmed by experience to make the argument.

And the machine would not be aware of any concept of argument.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Which in some senses is what we are, but ok…

And yet in the post you’re attempting to reply to I just explained that all of those experiential descriptions are also consistent with a deterministic model, but crucially that model isn’t beset with the overwhelming problems that are baked into your incoherent, self-contradictory, logically impossible, magic-reliant superstitious version. As to the person experiencing them the two models would feel exactly the same, why have you just ignored that and resorted again to reason-denying assertion?   

As I have just pointed out to Outrider, an entirely deterministic model would be a machine without self awareness - so such a model would be incapable of feeling anything.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

As I have just pointed out to Outrider, an entirely deterministic model would be a machine without self awareness - so such a model would be incapable of feeling anything.

You haven’t “pointed (that) out” – you’ve just asserted it. You have no idea whether, given enough complexity, a manufactured machine couldn’t one day be self-ware.

Oh, and you just avoided again the question you were asked: as the experience of “free” will in a rational deterministic explanatory model would be identical to the same experience in your irrational magic model, why opt for the latter rather than the former? 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB,

You haven’t “pointed (that) out” – you’ve just asserted it. You have no idea whether, given enough complexity, a manufactured machine couldn’t one day be self-ware.

Oh, and you just avoided again the question you were asked: as the experience of “free” will in a rational deterministic explanatory model would be identical to the same experience in your irrational magic model, why opt for the latter rather than the former?

I think in a deterministic universe...or any universe a machine wouldn't need self awareness. So we could ask what is probably the most useless thing in the universe , actually for?
Does complexity have to end up as self awareness, I'm not sure it does. Why do you think it could?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I think in a deterministic universe...or any universe a machine wouldn't need self awareness.

What a system supposedly “needs” is neither here nor there. Does this system “need” to flash synchronously?:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix66tQ93bdU

So we could ask what is probably the most useless thing in the universe , actually for?

The degree of “uselessness” is unknown, and being “for” something betrays your ignorance of emergence as a phenomenon. 

Does complexity have to end up as self awareness, I'm not sure it does. Why do you think it could?

See what you did there? You jumped straight from a “have to” to a “could”. I didn’t suggest a “have to” (though that seems pretty likely to me given enough complexity), and it could be because there’s no known barrier to it. AB just asserting it to be impossible isn’t a barrier – it’s just AB making one of his many unqualified assertions.   

[torridon]

As I have just pointed out to Outrider, an entirely deterministic model would be a machine without self awareness - so such a model would be incapable of feeling anything.

Why would that be ? Show your working, how do you get to that conclusion ? As far as I can see a non-deterministic model would not even be capable of life, never mind self-aware life.