Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

I could never consider my witnessing to the truth of our conscious freedom to be a blatent lie.

I didn't say that it was. Are you completely incapable of being honest or are you just not paying any attention? The blatant lie that I referred to was people's posts showed, or provided evidence, that they could have done differently.

Unless you can explain exactly how any words can show that they could have been different, it remains an obvious lie.

Your repeated explanations fail to explain the reality of the freedom we all enjoy.
If we are entirely shackled to reactions driven by past events there can be no concept of freedom.

Personal incredulity, appeal to consequences, and a straw man - that's three fallacies crammed into just two sentences.

Fallacies are basic mistakes in logic. How can you, with any shred of honesty, keep on claiming to have logic when you keep on making basic, well known mistakes like this?

How could I possibly deny the freedom God has given me to accept Jesus Christ as my Saviour?

Again, I didn't ask you to deny that, I asked you to stop telling blatant lies about something being evidence when it obviously can't be, namely, that the contents of people's posts show that they could have done differently.

How about honestly addressing what I've actually said, just for a change?

[Alan Burns]

I didn't say that it was. Are you completely incapable of being honest or are you just not paying any attention? The blatant lie that I referred to was people's posts showed, or provided evidence, that they could have done differently.

Unless you can explain exactly how any words can show that they could have been different, it remains an obvious lie.

The content of the posts I read are obviously not mere reactions to the past.
The content shows clear evidence of thought processes which are influenced by past events, but with added consciously driven directives to communicate personally conceived ideas and comment.  The source of such directives comes from within the present state of conscious awareness of the person making them.

Personal incredulity, appeal to consequences, and a straw man - that's three fallacies crammed into just two sentences.

If we are unable to have done anything differently, we have no freedom because what we do will just be an unavoidable reaction to past events.  There can be no concept of freedom within chains of inevitable cause and effect.

Fallacies are basic mistakes in logic. How can you, with any shred of honesty, keep on claiming to have logic when you keep on making basic, well known mistakes like this?

I see no fallacies in what I post.

Again, I didn't ask you to deny that, I asked you to stop telling blatant lies about something being evidence when it obviously can't be, namely, that the contents of people's posts show that they could have done differently.

How can you possibly claim that they were incapable of doing anything differently?
Do you profess to know everything about reality?
I do not claim to know everything, but I do know sufficient to conclude that the content of our thoughts, words and actions could  not have been entirely determined by uncontrollable reactions to past events.

[torridon]

I do not claim to know everything, but I do know sufficient to conclude that the content of our thoughts, words and actions could  not have been entirely determined by uncontrollable reactions to past events.

OK, so our minds are random, then, or at least to the extent that our mind states are not a consequence of prior factors. Over and over again, you keep portraying us as random, only to then deny having done so.  Your confusion over this simple point of logic seems to be chronic.

[Stranger]

The content of the posts I read are obviously not mere reactions to the past.
The content shows clear evidence of thought processes which are influenced by past events, but with added consciously driven directives to communicate personally conceived ideas and comment.  The source of such directives comes from within the present state of conscious awareness of the person making them.

Your personal incredulity and totally unsupported assertions cannot turn something into evidence. Words written on a message board cannot possibly be evidence that they could have been different, regardless of how unlikely you think that might be.

It is still a blatant lie to say that posts are evidence of your notion of freedom.

And "the present state of conscious awareness" is still utterly meaningless gibberish, no matter how often you mindlessly repeat it.

If we are unable to have done anything differently, we have no freedom because what we do will just be an unavoidable reaction to past events.  There can be no concept of freedom within chains of inevitable cause and effect.

Which is an appeal to consequences fallacy (again).

I see no fallacies in what I post.

Well, as you seem to understand absolutely nothing about logic and reasoning, perhaps that isn't surprising. Why not educate yourself? Why make yourself, your faith, and your god, look so ridiculous?

If you understand fallacies, why do you never even try to point out why they don't apply?

You really should look at this book: Critical Thinking (pdf).

How can you possibly claim that they were incapable of doing anything differently?
Do you profess to know everything about reality?

Again, you're not addressing what I actually said. I said that that it is a lie to say that words on a forum are evidence that they could have been different.

Even if you are entirely right and I am entirely wrong about free will, it is still a blatant lie to say that words written can be evidence that they could have been different.

I do not claim to know everything, but I do know sufficient to conclude that the content of our thoughts, words and actions could  not have been entirely determined by uncontrollable reactions to past events.

How do you know? Where is the first hint of a shred of a scintilla of a morsel of the "sound logic" you said you had? But how about starting out just by stopping telling blatant lies about words being evidence of this assertion?

[Gordon]

The content of the posts I read are obviously not mere reactions to the past.

In essence that is exactly what they are, along with our personal traits and mental abilities.

The content shows clear evidence of thought processes which are influenced by past events, but with added consciously driven directives to communicate personally conceived ideas and comment.  The source of such directives comes from within the present state of conscious awareness of the person making them.

Too simplistic, Alan: you're simply ignoring what you find to be inconvenient.

If we are unable to have done anything differently, we have no freedom because what we do will just be an unavoidable reaction to past events.  There can be no concept of freedom within chains of inevitable cause and effect.

A consequences that scares you because it negates your bespoke religious beliefs. That you have a degree of agency and experience the feeling that you have free will doesn't exclude you from being as subject to determinism as the rest of us - maybe, as it says somewhere in your holy book, you need to put away childish things (in this case simplictic and illogical religious beliefs).

I see no fallacies in what I post.

I know you don't: and that is a problem you really need to correct.

How can you possibly claim that they were incapable of doing anything differently?

Because unless randomness was a factor, and as a thought experiment we imagine that time was replayed so that all the circumstances were precisely identical, including your physical and mental state at that time, then the outcome (whatever that was) would be as it originally occurred - unless there was an element of randomness that was beyond your control.

So, to enact this thought experiment, if I imagine rewinding time (and my domestic circumstances and physical/mental state, and also that of 'the boss') by 24 hours to breakfast yesterday morning I think that I would have exactly the same as I actually did yesterday, given the risk of randomness is low.

Do you profess to know everything about reality?

I don't think anyone here professes that they do, since to do so would be idiocy - but you know that.

I do not claim to know everything, but I do know sufficient to conclude that the content of our thoughts, words and actions could  not have been entirely determined by uncontrollable reactions to past events.

Ignoring your usual hyperbole this, of course, is your greatest fear and threat to your faith: surprised you can't see that by now since it has been pointed out to you often enough.

[Alan Burns]

OK, so our minds are random, then, or at least to the extent that our mind states are not a consequence of prior factors. Over and over again, you keep portraying us as random, only to then deny having done so.  Your confusion over this simple point of logic seems to be chronic.

I have never implied that our thoughts words and actions are random.
You persistently fail to comprehend that thoughts can be consciously determined by a source which is not entirely predefined as an uncontrollable consequence to past events.

[Outrider]

I have never inferred that our thoughts words and actions are random.

The implication of our thoughts being something other than determined by previous events is that there is at least some random element.

You persistently fail to comprehend that thoughts can be consciously determined by a source which is not entirely predefined as an uncontrollable consequence to past events.

How?  We do fail to comprehend this, in part because you've yet to give us a model that makes sense.  Individual events are either a result of prior activity, or they are random - what is this third path that you're trying to tread, which is neither dependent upon prior events nor random?  How does that work?  What, logically, is happening there?  You can make the claim, but until and unless you can explain it in a way that makes sense it's like talking about circles with right-angles in them and then complaining that people keep trying to stick to their old geometries - you're making the claim, explain your 'new geometry' of events.

O.

[Stranger]

I have never inferred that our thoughts words and actions are random.

Yes, you have. Every time you insist they are not fully defined by the past events that led to them, you are claiming there is some part of them for which there is no reason (random).

Remember: #40759.

You persistently fail to comprehend that thoughts can be consciously determined by a source which is not entirely predefined as an uncontrollable consequence to past events.

You persistently, assert this self-contradictory nonsense, and then lie about evidence existing in people's posts, and apparently lie about having logic to back it up - as you've never once produced anything that even looks like a logical argument or made any credible attempt to resolve the contradiction.

Your inevitable reaction to this is to just regurgitate part of some tired old script (like the one you just used here) you seem to have dreamt up years ago and can't be even be arsed to think about enough to adapting it to what people have already addressed (countless times).

[torridon]

I have never inferred that our thoughts words and actions are random.
You persistently fail to comprehend that thoughts can be consciously determined by a source which is not entirely predefined as an uncontrollable consequence to past events.

There you go, yet again, inferring that our thoughts can be random and simultaneously denying it within the space of one small post. If I have a thought that has no derivation, that is not a consequence of something, then that thought would be a random event.  This is inescapably true, it is what the words mean, it is logic. You are just engaging in a never-ending incredulity dance instead of learning to think, to reason, to understand.

[Alan Burns]

And "the present state of conscious awareness" is still utterly meaningless gibberish, no matter how often you mindlessly repeat it.

It is the only explanation for the source of my freedom to repeat it.
My freedom to repeat it certainly does not come from uncontrollable consequences to physical reactions.
(and I am also free to continue to refer to the concept of "physical" despite your own consciously driven insistence that it is irrelevant)

You need to face the truth that we are both free to post whatever we choose - for the truth really does set us free.
Our conscious awareness is our true self - the soul in which our freedom resides.

Our soul sets us free.
Free from the deterministic control of physical reactions.

[Alan Burns]

There you go, yet again, inferring that our thoughts can be random and simultaneously denying it within the space of one small post. If I have a thought that has no derivation, that is not a consequence of something, then that thought would be a random event.  This is inescapably true, it is what the words mean, it is logic. You are just engaging in a never-ending incredulity dance instead of learning to think, to reason, to understand.

Please stop trying to put your own interpretation on what I am saying.
I have never implied that our thoughts can be random.
They have a cause.
Does the cause emanate from uncontrollable reactions, or does it come from your true self - your God given soul?

[Nearly Sane]

Please stop trying to put your own interpretation on what I am saying.
I have never inferred that our thoughts can be random.
They have a cause.
Does the cause emanate from uncontrollable reactions, or does it come from your true self - your God given soul?

You mean implied, not inferred.

[Alan Burns]

You mean implied, not inferred.

Thanks NS.
I agree - this explains the subtle difference from the Oxford English dictionary:
Usage

There is a distinction in meaning between infer and imply. In the sentence the speaker implied that the general had been a traitor, the word implied means that something in the speaker's words ‘suggested’ that this man was a traitor (although nothing so explicit was actually stated). However, in we inferred from his words that the general had been a traitor, the word inferred means that something in the speaker's words enabled the listeners to ‘deduce’ that the man was a traitor. The two words infer and imply can describe the same event, but from different angles. Mistakes occur when infer is used to mean imply, as in are you inferring that I'm a liar? (instead of are you implying that I'm a liar?)

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I have never implied that our thoughts words and actions are random...

No, what you do to get off the hook of the binary determined vs random problem is to invoke magic: "There's something called a "soul", and its working is neither determined nor random but I have no idea how that could be".

Trouble is, when you rely on magic for your answer then anything goes. Storks delivering babies? No problem - it's magic innit.

Oh, and as you made great play of something very unlikely happening being significant in some way, what do you think that significance to be and why?

 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Thanks NS.
I agree - this explains the subtle difference from the Oxford English dictionary:
Usage...

It's not subtle: I imply, you infer.

[Stranger]

It is the only explanation for the source of my freedom to repeat it.
My freedom to repeat it certainly does not come from uncontrollable consequences to physical reactions.

Baseless assertions.

(and I am also free to continue to refer to the concept of "physical" despite your own consciously driven insistence that it is irrelevant)

Yes, you are free to go on dishonestly misrepresenting the argument against, thus demonstrating your own fear of tackling the real argument and the fact that your faith seems to encourage dishonesty and lies.

You need to face the truth that we are both free to post whatever we choose - for the truth really does set us free.

More dishonest misrepresentation. Nobody has ever disputed that we can post whatever we choose.

Our conscious awareness is our true self - the soul in which our freedom resides.

Our soul sets us free.

Baseless assertions.

Free from the deterministic control of physical reactions.

More misrepresentations, and if it set us free from determinism (the inability to have done differently), then it must make us random.

You're just repeating the same dishonest drivel over and over again. What's the point?

[Stranger]

Please stop trying to put your own interpretation on what I am saying.
I have never implied that our thoughts can be random.

Yes, you have, over and over again. Every time you say we are free from determinism (we could have done differently) you are saying we are partly random.

[Stranger]

No, what you do to get off the hook of the binary determined vs random problem is to invoke magic: "There's something called a "soul", and its working is neither determined nor random but I have no idea how that could be".

Even magic doesn't help, unless it can be logically self-contradictory. If Alan thinks his god could allow him to draw a square circle, he might have a point, if he thinks it must retain logical consistency, magic doesn't help a jot.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Stranger,

Even magic doesn't help, unless it can be logically self-contradictory. If Alan thinks his god could allow him to draw a square circle, he might have a point, if he thinks it must retain logical consistency, magic doesn't help a jot.

Yes I know, but from what I can discern from the incoherent mess of what he does believe it can be logically contradictory. He makes half-hearted attempts to justify his belief logically, but when they fail he just tells us that logic is "man-made" in any case case and that by some unknown process he "sees the bigger picture" that's apparently "beyond logic", so anything goes. I'm aware it's all madder than a monkey on a tricycle, but that's all he has: "It's magic innit".       
 

[torridon]

Please stop trying to put your own interpretation on what I am saying.
I have never implied that our thoughts can be random.
They have a cause.
Does the cause emanate from uncontrollable reactions, or does it come from your true self - your God given soul?

This makes no sense, you are back to claiming that a cause can be its own cause. There is not a parallel stream of cause and effect running within individuals that is separate and distinct from the wider concept of cause and effect. As individuals we engage and interact with the wider world, all our deliberations and choices are made within that wider context. Someone generating his own internal stream of cause and effect would be acting randomly as far as the rest of the world is concerned.  The choices we make have to relate to the conditions requiring us to make a choice.

[Stranger]

And "the present state of conscious awareness" is still utterly meaningless gibberish, no matter how often you mindlessly repeat it.

It is the only explanation for the source of my freedom to repeat it.
...

Oh, and regardless of the other nonsense I pointed out in my last reply "the present state of conscious awareness" is literally meaningless because "the present" has no logically significant meaning. Literally, it doesn't exist and colloquially it's just a short amount of time.

You might as well say "the magical detjuwgag state of conscious awareness"...

[Alan Burns]

Yes, you have, over and over again. Every time you say we are free from determinism (we could have done differently) you are saying we are partly random.

No.
We are not free from determinism.
We are free from PHYSICALLY controlled chains of inevitable cause and effect over which we can have no control, because the laws of PHYSICS are in control.
Our thoughts, words and actions are DETERMINED by the conscious will of the human soul. (The soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture).
Nothing at all to do with random events.
How anyone can possibly believe that all our posts can be generated solely by inevitable consequences to PHYSICALLY controlled chains of reactions is totally beyond my comprehension. 

[Alan Burns]

Oh, and regardless of the other nonsense I pointed out in my last reply "the present state of conscious awareness" is literally meaningless because "the present" has no logically significant meaning. Literally, it doesn't exist and colloquially it's just a short amount of time.

"The Present" is simply defined as where my conscious awareness exists and acts.
It can't be defined in PHYSICAL terms, because it is defined by the SPIRITUAL entity of our human soul.

[Gordon]

"The Present" is simply defined as where my conscious awareness exists and acts.
It can't be defined in PHYSICAL terms, because it is defined by the SPIRITUAL entity of our human soul.

Which is, of course, common or garden theobollocks.

[Gordon]

How anyone can possibly believe that all our posts can be generated solely by inevitable consequences to PHYSICALLY controlled chains of reactions is totally beyond my comprehension. 

So it seems: but that is because you are overwhelmed by the worst case of personal incredulity I've encountered to date.