Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

AB,

There’s nothing to suggest that thinking isn’t an emergent property of functioning brains.
 

In this context, the phrase "emergent property" is just a meaningless label which says nothing about what comprises our conscious thoughts or how they work.  However in a totally materialist scenario you would have to presume that this "emergent property" phrase must somehow define conscious thought because that is all there is.

The “controller” in your scenario would be a thinking entity instructing another thinking entity what to do
 

No
My scenario is that a conscious entity of perception (you) have the ability to interact with the biological workings of a material brain.  Molecules do not think - they react.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

In this context, the phrase "emergent property" is just a meaningless label which says nothing about what comprises our conscious thoughts or how they work.

Wrong again. An emergent property is simply a property of an entity whose interacting parts do not individually have that property. Neither hydrogen nor oxygen for example are wet, yet combined in the right ratio they produce water. That consciousness is hugely more complex than wetness doesn’t undo the basic principle that consciousness as a phenomenon could also be an emergent property of fantastically complex brains. “What comprises our conscious thoughts or how they work” is for this purpose neither here nor there – all that’s necessary is to show that you have no argument to dismiss emergence as the possible explanation. Note that I do not argue that consciousness necessarily is an emergent property - just that you have no grounds to dismiss the possibility.         

However in a totally materialist scenario you would have to presume that this "emergent property" phrase must somehow define conscious thought because that is all there is.

You’re still confused. I wouldn’t have to “define conscious thought” as you put it at all – I just have to show that consciousness is in principle aligned to the basic model of complexity arising spontaneously from simpler component parts. Unless you can think of a reason to show that that cannot be the case for consciousness, the possibility remains.   

No
My scenario is that a conscious entity of perception (you) have the ability to interact with the biological workings of a material brain.  Molecules do not think - they react.

You really need to make your mind up here. In previous posts you’ve asserted there to be a little man at the controls you call a “soul” that somehow pulls the levers of “us”. If you’ve now abandoned that notion that’s progress of a kind, but you’re still lost in a world of Cartesian mind-body dualism. This conjecture throws up many more problems and contradictions than accepting the findings of the last 300 years or so of scientific discovery on the matter, and until you can deal with the fundamental problems it produces you condemn yourself to that same space as any other myth and superstition.     

[Maeght]

I would read the following verses as being about 'snares' that await those attempting the way of  humility.  They can come from others and from your own egotism and you have to be prepared to  be aggressive in your efforts and eliminate what threatens that humility.

Can't read any of that in what I read.

[torridon]

The concepts of purpose and design and intention are not found in the observable mechanics of our material universe - these concepts only exist in the human mind.  Our human minds would appear to be not of this universe, and are capable of reaching out to what may lie beyond our material universe - our true home?

This is incorrect, there are many examples from the natural world of non-human animals displaying intentionality.

Here is a pod of killer whales that have worked out how to dislodge a seal from an ice floe :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1VEwsI4SlY

This illustrates ingenuity in problem solving, forward planning, collaboration, thinking outside the box. Nobody taught them how to do this, they figured it out for themselves.

[jeremyp]

My scenario is that a conscious entity of perception (you) have the ability to interact with the biological workings of a material brain.  Molecules do not think - they react.

Molecules obey the laws of physics. For your scenario to be true, they'd have to disobey the laws of physics in response to the conscious entity. Have you got any evidence whatsoever of that happening?

No, thought not.

[Alan Burns]

Molecules obey the laws of physics. For your scenario to be true, they'd have to disobey the laws of physics in response to the conscious entity. Have you got any evidence whatsoever of that happening?

My God given gift of free will can only manifest if I have the consciously driven ability to interact with the physical workings of my human brain.  I do not need to change the laws of physics - I need to manipulate the physical workings of my brain cells in order to achieve my consciously driven goals.  I speculate that one way of achieving this ability to manipulate could be through a quantum gateway through which my spiritual self can induce quantum events to influence the workings of appropriate brain cells.

[Sebastian Toe]

My God given gift of free will can only manifest if I have the consciously driven ability to interact with the physical workings of my human brain.  I do not need to change the laws of physics - I need to manipulate the physical workings of my brain cells in order to achieve my consciously driven goals.  I speculate that one way of achieving this ability to manipulate could be through a quantum gateway through which my spiritual self can induce quantum events to influence the workings of appropriate brain cells.

In this context, the phrase "quantum gateway" is just a meaningless label which says nothing about what comprises our conscious thoughts or how they work

[torridon]

My God given gift of free will can only manifest if I have the consciously driven ability to interact with the physical workings of my human brain.  I do not need to change the laws of physics - I need to manipulate the physical workings of my brain cells in order to achieve my consciously driven goals.  I speculate that one way of achieving this ability to manipulate could be through a quantum gateway through which my spiritual self can induce quantum events to influence the workings of appropriate brain cells.

Gobbledygook

[Gordon]

My God given gift of free will can only manifest if I have the consciously driven ability to interact with the physical workings of my human brain.  I do not need to change the laws of physics - I need to manipulate the physical workings of my brain cells in order to achieve my consciously driven goals.  I speculate that one way of achieving this ability to manipulate could be through a quantum gateway through which my spiritual self can induce quantum events to influence the workings of appropriate brain cells.

'Spiritual self' and Quantum eh - reads more like desperation to me. 'You' are just the workings of your brain, Alan - whether you like it or not.

Tell me, and I'm playing along for a minute, how to you go about first thinking about which thoughts/brain cells you subsequently want to 'manipulate' to achieve these 'consciously driven goals' - how does that work? In effect you're saying that you've thought up these'consciously driven goals' before then 'manipulating' your brain so as to think about how to then achieve them - and doesn't make any sense at all: reads like nonsense!

[jeremyp]

My God given gift of free will can only manifest if I have the consciously driven ability to interact with the physical workings of my human brain.  I do not need to change the laws of physics - I need to manipulate the physical workings of my brain cells in order to achieve my consciously driven goals.  I speculate that one way of achieving this ability to manipulate could be through a quantum gateway through which my spiritual self can induce quantum events to influence the workings of appropriate brain cells.

So basically induce your brain to break the laws of physics. Where’s the evidence?

[Enki]

My God given gift of free will can only manifest if I have the consciously driven ability to interact with the physical workings of my human brain.  I do not need to change the laws of physics - I need to manipulate the physical workings of my brain cells in order to achieve my consciously driven goals.  I speculate that one way of achieving this ability to manipulate could be through a quantum gateway through which my spiritual self can induce quantum events to influence the workings of appropriate brain cells.

I have an idea. Why not the pituitary gland? Oh, damn, it's already been suggested. 

[ekim]

Can't read any of that in what I read.

Well, it's just my take on those verses based upon the Greek.  One of the key words is 'skandalon' which I understand means 'snares'.  I suspect that 'Jesus' spoke in Aramaic and there is no guarantee that whoever composed the Gospels heard what he said, understood what he said, translated what he said correctly and that I am anywhere near what he was trying to convey.  At least I won't be burnt at the stake for heresy. 

[Enki]

My God given gift of free will can only manifest if I have the consciously driven ability to interact with the physical workings of my human brain.  I do not need to change the laws of physics - I need to manipulate the physical workings of my brain cells in order to achieve my consciously driven goals.  I speculate that one way of achieving this ability to manipulate could be through a quantum gateway through which my spiritual self can induce quantum events to influence the workings of appropriate brain cells.

Actually your suggestion seems to be a non starter. It is vague, completely tenuous and relies on the idea thst there is an 'I' separate from the brain, for which there is no evidence whatever. Serious scientists who have suggested that quantum mechanics plays a part in the workings of the brain(and especially as regards the binding problem of consciousness) such as through microtubules or ion channels or the brain's EM field, accept that if there is  quantum effect it is only capable of influencing neural processes within the brain.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

My God given gift of free will can only manifest if I have the consciously driven ability to interact with the physical workings of my human brain.  I do not need to change the laws of physics - I need to manipulate the physical workings of my brain cells in order to achieve my consciously driven goals.  I speculate that one way of achieving this ability to manipulate could be through a quantum gateway through which my spiritual self can induce quantum events to influence the workings of appropriate brain cells.

Utter gibberish.

Anyway, I explained to you in Reply 44176 why you have no argument to dismiss emergence as a possible explanatory model for consciousness. You can ignore that or not as you wish, but you cannot blithely keep repeating the same mistakes as if nothing had been explained to you. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What if a chain of contingency is actually circular Vlad - how does that equate with you claimed hierarchy.

You do seem terribly wedded to unidirectional linearity in your thinking Vlad. Other options are, of course, plausible.

There are difficulties in the extreme for a circular hierarchy
1. You cannot be the contingent entity and the necessary entity at the same time.
2. In a circular heirarchy all things are both contingent on other things and contingent on themselves. That is an absurdity
3. Being contingent on themselves renders the other components of the hierarchy unnecessary.
4. Since all the components are thus rendered unnecessary all are contingent and none necessary.
5. And yet you are also saying that they are necessary for the subsequent member of the hierarchy.
6  in a circular hierarchy things are non contingent because they are self necessary.
You have ended up with entities whom existence is found in themselves.
5. You have supplied a reason for necessary entities but where entries are multiplied beyond the necessity found in linear or vertical hierarchies.

[jeremyp]

There are difficulties in the extreme for a circular hierarchy
1. You cannot be the contingent entity and the necessary entity at the same time.

The advantage of a circular "hierarchy" is that there are no necessary entities.

2. In a circular heirarchy all things are both contingent on other things and contingent on themselves. That is an absurdity

Is it?

[ProfessorDavey]

1. You cannot be the contingent entity and the necessary entity at the same time.

Why not?

And why not at different times? And you haven't justified the need for a necessary entity anyhow - in other words one that isn't contingent on anything else. Down that route lies either infinite regress or special pleading, unless or until you open your mind to circular hierarchy and/or networks of interacting elements.

2. In a circular heirarchy all things are both contingent on other things and contingent on themselves. That is an absurdity

No more absurd that claiming that all things are contingent on something else, unless they aren't and the reason being 'cos I say so'. Co-contingency seems perfectly plausible and there are plenty of real-life examples. And once you take out the assumption that time is linear, constant and unidirectional then this seems eminently more possible as most of the notion that x-causes y is based on an assumption that x must happen before y to be the 'cause'.

5. You have supplied a reason for necessary entities but where entries are multiplied beyond the necessity found in linear or vertical hierarchies.

I have done nothing of the sort - I have made no claim that necessary entities are ... err ... necessary - that's you claim and one you seem very confused about and unable to justify beyond special pleading.

You are bit like a person who sees one runner overtake another on a racetrack and then cannot understand why the runner who is now 'in front' suddenly comes up behind the overtaken runner. Easy if you understand that the track may be circular - but you really do struggle to get beyond the notion that time/space is constant, that time is unidirectional and linear. It may seem as such to simplistic human observation, but that doesn't mean it is and to assume so (or struggle to contemplate alternatives) suggests a highly anthropocentric understanding of the cosmos.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Utter gibberish.

Anyway, I explained to you in Reply 44176 why you have no argument to dismiss emergence as a possible explanatory model for consciousness. You can ignore that or not as you wish, but you cannot blithely keep repeating the same mistakes as if nothing had been explained to you.

This is the problem I have with your emergent property explanation:

If my conscious awareness is merely what emerges from material reactions, there is no possible route for my emerging conscious awareness to feed back to the material reactions which have already occurred and which define my conscious awareness.  So my conscious awareness becomes a mere spectator of the physical brain activity which has already occurred.

How anyone deny their conscious ability manipulate their own conscious thought processes is a mystery to me.
The other mystery is how sub conscious brain activity can possibly achieve verifiable conclusions without conscious interaction.

You will no doubt presume that your own sub conscious brain activity is justified in giving my post another "personal incredulity" label.  But what exactly is it that presumes this justification?

[jeremyp]

This is the problem I have with your emergent property explanation:

If my conscious awareness is merely what emerges from material reactions, there is no possible route for my emerging conscious awareness to feed back to the material reactions which have already occurred and which define my conscious awareness.  So my conscious awareness becomes a mere spectator of the physical brain activity which has already occurred.

You are arguing that conscious beings can change things that have already happened. That's nonsense.

How anyone deny their conscious ability manipulate their own conscious thought processes is a mystery to me.

This is a straw man.

The other mystery is how sub conscious brain activity can possibly achieve verifiable conclusions without conscious interaction.

Why not?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,
 

This is the problem I have with your emergent property explanation:
 
If my conscious awareness is merely what emerges from material reactions, there is no possible route for my emerging conscious awareness to feed back to the material reactions which have already occurred and which define my conscious awareness.  So my conscious awareness becomes a mere spectator of the physical brain activity which has already occurred.
 
How anyone deny their conscious ability manipulate their own conscious thought processes is a mystery to me.
The other mystery is how sub conscious brain activity can possibly achieve verifiable conclusions without conscious interaction.
 
You will no doubt presume that your own sub conscious brain activity is justified in giving my post another "personal incredulity" label.  But what exactly is it that presumes this justification?

Actually the broad brush explanation is that decision-making is an interaction between the pre-frontal cortex (working memory) and the hippocampus (long-term memory), though other (but less well understood) parts of the brain seem to be involved too. That’s the “feedback” process you wrongly assert there to be “no possible route” for. This interactive process has been understood for decades. 
 
None of this thought requires a separate “you” somehow to “manipulate” what the brain does – rather the brain is a sublimely complex but, in principle at least, explicable integrated material model from which consciousness emerges. And that’s the point – all over nature complex properties emerge spontaneously from the interactions of component parts that individually do not have those properties. There’s no good reason I know of to exclude the complex property of consciousness from that paradigm.

As for your incredulity, essentially yes: “I don’t understand explanation X, therefore the answer must be explanation Y” (when you have some information about X and precisely no information about Y) has been a characteristic of bad thinking through the ages, and you’re just trying another iteration of it here. It’s simple enough: absence of (or incomplete) evidence for one explanation does not justify a different explanation (for which there is no evidence at all), and especially when in principle the first explanation fits perfectly well into a robust explanatory model (emergence) and the second throws up intractable contradictions.   

To put it another way: why in principle do you think you have a better chance of identifying the picture on a jig-saw when you have none of the pieces than you do when you have some of the pieces, even if you don’t understand how those pieces fit together?   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The advantage of a circular "hierarchy" is that there are no necessary entities.Is it?

In a circular hierarchy they are all contingent and necessary at least for themselves. They are all in affect self created entities.

You invalidate that objection to God.

Also there is no explanation for why any of them are there apart from the argument from necessity which is undermined by the absurdity and impossibility of being self necessary and utterly dependent on other entities simultaneously.

E.g I existed before my father and he begat me and I begat him and he begat me and I begat him(into infinity)
Is I would move a far stranger proposition than anything in theology.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

In a circular hierarchy they are all contingent and necessary at least for themselves. They are all in affect self created entities.

You invalidate that objection to God.

Also there is no explanation for why any of them are there apart from the argument from necessity which is undermined by the absurdity and impossibility of being self necessary and utterly dependent on other entities simultaneously.

E.g I existed before my father and he begat me and I begat him and he begat me and I begat him(into infinity)
Is I would move a far stranger proposition than anything in theology.

Is there any part of that that doesn’t apply as equally to your god as it does to the universe?

Anyway – I dismantled the cosmological argument for you back in Reply 44160. Not sure why you’re still clinging to the wreckage therefore? 

[Outrider]

Also there is no explanation for why any of them are there apart from the argument from necessity which is undermined by the absurdity and impossibility of being self necessary and utterly dependent on other entities simultaneously.

You keep begging the question by asking 'why' as though it were an intent. There may not be a why, just a how.

E.g I existed before my father and he begat me and I begat him and he begat me and I begat him(into infinity) Is I would move a far stranger proposition than anything in theology.

Established idea of cause and effect extended vs magic. I don't agree with your estimation of relative likelihood.

O.

[Alan Burns]

AB,
 
Actually the broad brush explanation is that decision-making is an interaction between the pre-frontal cortex (working memory) and the hippocampus (long-term memory), though other (but less well understood) parts of the brain seem to be involved too. That’s the “feedback” process you wrongly assert there to be “no possible route” for. This interactive process has been understood for decades. 

I was not questioning the fact that feedback exists.  I was querying how feedback occurs in the material "cause and effect" model where our awareness emerges from material reactions without any physical means to feed back to the reactions from which it emerges.  Your emergent property explanation is not as robust as you imply.

None of this thought requires a separate “you” somehow to “manipulate” what the brain does – rather the brain is a sublimely complex but, in principle at least, explicable integrated material model from which consciousness emerges. And that’s the point – all over nature complex properties emerge spontaneously from the interactions of component parts that individually do not have those properties. There’s no good reason I know of to exclude the complex property of consciousness from that paradigm.

No matter how complex a material brain is, it will be controlled entirely by the laws of particle physics.  So I would have to agree that there is no separate "you".  In fact there would be no "you" at all, just physically controlled reactions producing more reactions.  Any concept of control or manipulation would be totally automated by the chains of physical reactions - no need for a "you".

As for your incredulity, essentially yes: “I don’t understand explanation X, therefore the answer must be explanation Y” (when you have some information about X and precisely no information about Y) has been a characteristic of bad thinking through the ages, and you’re just trying another iteration of it here. It’s simple enough: absence of (or incomplete) evidence for one explanation does not justify a different explanation (for which there is no evidence at all), and especially when in principle the first explanation fits perfectly well into a robust explanatory model (emergence) and the second throws up intractable contradictions.   

To put it another way: why in principle do you think you have a better chance of identifying the picture on a jig-saw when you have none of the pieces than you do when you have some of the pieces, even if you don’t understand how those pieces fit together?

I am sure we can both agree that we do know some of the pieces of the jigsaw of reality.  Science has discovered much about the biological mechanisms in our material bodies, and we can both agree that there are still missing pieces needed to complete the picture of reality.  It is clear that you believe that all the missing pieces will be defined entirely by material entities which obey the laws of physics.  The obvious contradiction with this postulation is that our perception that we have conscious freedom to choose will be denied, because every thought word or action will be pre defined by unavoidable reactions to past events over which we have no control.  I do not claim to know what the missing pieces are, but I do know that material based explanations will always fall short of the reality we all enjoy in our human lives,

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I was not questioning the fact that feedback exists.  I was querying how feedback occurs in the material "cause and effect" model where our awareness emerges from material reactions without any physical means to feed back to the reactions from which it emerges.  Your emergent property explanation is not as robust as you imply.

You’re contradicting yourself here. If you accept that the brain has internal feedback mechanisms(s), then you know that there are “physical means” by which it happens.

And emergence as a phenomenon is very robust – it’s observed all over nature, and has been thoroughly documented. There’s no good reason to exclude consciousness from that model in principle – you’re just assuming that its complexity must in some unexplained way exclude it, but that’s just a question of scale rather than of the basic phenomenon.
 

No matter how complex a material brain is, it will be controlled entirely by the laws of particle physics.  So I would have to agree that there is no separate "you".  In fact there would be no "you" at all, just physically controlled reactions producing more reactions.  Any concept of control or manipulation would be totally automated by the chains of physical reactions - no need for a "you".

Your use of terminology is all over the place here, but essentially yes to the first part. That’s not to say though that there is no “you” – there is, but your sense of being “you” is actually just what thinking feels like as an integrated experience rather than evidence of a separate little man called “soul” or some such pulling the levers.   
 

I am sure we can both agree that we do know some of the pieces of the jigsaw of reality.  Science has discovered much about the biological mechanisms in our material bodies, and we can both agree that there are still missing pieces needed to complete the picture of reality.

OK so far…

It is clear that you believe that all the missing pieces will be defined entirely by material entities which obey the laws of physics.

Absent any good reason to think there’s an alternative to “material entities”, yes…

The obvious contradiction…

Oh-oh – I sense more unqualified assertions and fallacious reasoning to come…

… with this postulation is that our perception that we have conscious freedom to choose will be denied, because every thought word or action will be pre defined by unavoidable reactions to past events over which we have no control.  I do not claim to know what the missing pieces are, but I do know that material based explanations will always fall short of the reality we all enjoy in our human lives,

And there it was. Try to grasp something actually very simple here – our sense of agency, of making choices as if somehow untethered from a priori events is palpably impossible. Why? Because your notion of a stand-alone decision-making entity (“soul”) would itself require some process of thinking to make its decisions. And if you were to be consistent in your reasoning, that entity too would then require another little man (Soul 2) to tell it what to do. And that little man would in turn etc forever in an infinite regress. This is why you have to cheat your way out with magic – ie, a little man at the controls that breaks all the rules of logic.

Can you see now why your solution gives you far more intractable problems than just accepting the evidence that feeling as though we float free of prior conditions when making decisions is just the way decision-making feels as an experience rather than way it must be?

So let me ask you again: why in principle do you think you have a better chance of identifying the picture on a jig-saw when you have none of the pieces than you do when you have some of the pieces, even if you don’t understand how those pieces fit together?