Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

You highlight the word "trying".  This is the very thing which confirms the power of consciously driven control.

Apart from getting seriously hilarious, it's also somewhat weird in that you seem to be approaching all this 'free will' nonsense as if it's something that you've learnt by rote, without any hint of underlying understanding. Why else would you just go on repeating the same things, with the same phrases, in the same, or very similar words (the latest example being 'conscious control' and similar) after so many people have pointed out that they are totally devoid of meaning because you've never explained them or addressed the apparent contradictions? Surely somebody with any understanding would just stop and offer a meaningful explanation with a new approach and wording?

The recent exchanges about 'answered' prayers were somewhat different in character. I mean the 'argument' is just as inane and vacuous, but you had several different ways of addressing it.

I have a theory (colloquial sense, rather than scientific). While arguments about prayers being answered are commonplace amongst Christians, as well as other religions, and many people have expressed them in many ways, your approach to 'free will' seems to have been all your own. So why does that mean that you approach it like something you learnt by rote and don't understand? Well, I suspect, on some level, conscious or otherwise, that you sense that it is deeply flawed and that it needs serious reworking, if not abandoning completely as a failed approach, but you have invested far too much in it (I think you even mentioned writing a book) for you to dare to even think that this might be the case. You made the glaring logical blunders many years ago and are now too afraid to revisit them, and it is that that is driving the endless repetition of the same words and phrases. You dare not think about it or risk tinkering with it in even the slightest way, like just rewording it a bit, in case you are forced to realise that it simply doesn't work.

That's why you have to run away from anybody else offering a detailed analysis, as I attempted in #44984, you can't possibly allow yourself to think about it, so the automatic defence response kicks in with the comically absurd claim that anybody who offers a detailed, logical, thought out approach is just proving your point.

Anyway, your posts at least offer a dire warning to anybody who reads them of the damage blind faith can do to a human mind's ability to think logically.

You do not need a degree in logistics to realise that our ability to consciously try to do anything stems from our freedom to contemplate and to consciously choose what to do, think or say.  Your attempts to logically analyse the reality of consciously driven choices does not match up with the demonstrable freedom we all enjoy.

Which neatly provides another example of something you dare not think about. I have pointed out many, many times that the role of consciousness is completely irrelevant to the impossibility of your version of 'free will' and yet they remain firmly superglued together in your mind because you dare not think about it enough to even try to provide an argument that logically connects them - yet another logical blunder in your original formulation of the 'argument' that you are now too invested in to risk revisiting.

[Gordon]

I would say that animals do not need to "try" to follow their biologically driven instincts - they just do it!

On the same basis we humans also follow our "biologically driven instincts", which in our case tends to involve intellectual activity more than it does, say, dislodging seals from ice floes - we just do it!

[Sebastian Toe]

I would say that animals do not need to "try" to follow their biologically driven instincts - they just do it!

Maybe thinking is a biologically driven instinct.
You just haven't thought about it enough to realise!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Maybe thinking is a biologically driven instinct.

Biologically driven instinct. Any relation to Bachman Turner Overdrive?

[Dicky Underpants]

Biologically driven instinct. Any relation to Bachman Turner Overdrive?

Give Alan some real support, Vlad. Tell us how the 'soul' exercises its freedom of choice, and how it interacts with the body.

[Alan Burns]

Apart from getting seriously hilarious, it's also somewhat weird in that you seem to be approaching all this 'free will' nonsense as if it's something that you've learnt by rote, without any hint of underlying understanding. Why else would you just go on repeating the same things, with the same phrases, in the same, or very similar words (the latest example being 'conscious control' and similar) after so many people have pointed out that they are totally devoid of meaning because you've never explained them or addressed the apparent contradictions? Surely somebody with any understanding would just stop and offer a meaningful explanation with a new approach and wording?

The recent exchanges about 'answered' prayers were somewhat different in character. I mean the 'argument' is just as inane and vacuous, but you had several different ways of addressing it.

I have a theory (colloquial sense, rather than scientific). While arguments about prayers being answered are commonplace amongst Christians, as well as other religions, and many people have expressed them in many ways, your approach to 'free will' seems to have been all your own. So why does that mean that you approach it like something you learnt by rote and don't understand? Well, I suspect, on some level, conscious or otherwise, that you sense that it is deeply flawed and that it needs serious reworking, if not abandoning completely as a failed approach, but you have invested far too much in it (I think you even mentioned writing a book) for you to dare to even think that this might be the case. You made the glaring logical blunders many years ago and are now too afraid to revisit them, and it is that that is driving the endless repetition of the same words and phrases. You dare not think about it or risk tinkering with it in even the slightest way, like just rewording it a bit, in case you are forced to realise that it simply doesn't work.

That's why you have to run away from anybody else offering a detailed analysis, as I attempted in #44984, you can't possibly allow yourself to think about it, so the automatic defence response kicks in with the comically absurd claim that anybody who offers a detailed, logical, thought out approach is just proving your point.

Anyway, your posts at least offer a dire warning to anybody who reads them of the damage blind faith can do to a human mind's ability to think logically.

Which neatly provides another example of something you dare not think about. I have pointed out many, many times that the role of consciousness is completely irrelevant to the impossibility of your version of 'free will' and yet they remain firmly superglued together in your mind because you dare not think about it enough to even try to provide an argument that logically connects them - yet another logical blunder in your original formulation of the 'argument' that you are now too invested in to risk revisiting.

You seem to be implying that my take on the reality of human free will as hilarious and weird nonsense.  I know I am not alone in my way of thinking.  As I said in an earlier post, it was over fifty years ago when I fully realised that the concept of human free will is a logical impossibility.  I also knew that my free will was a demonstrable reality.  Some years later I came across the book "Miracles" by CS Lewis in which he devoted a full chapter in explaining how free will is incompatible with the workings of a material brain.  He did not see the need to try to explain away our free will - he just accepted it as a miraculous reality.  I later came across the works of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the great German thinker whose concepts of the incompatibility of the workings of a human mind with material behaviour were very similar to mine.  Then there are the comments of the philosopher Immanuel Kant on compatibilists who endeavour to claim compatibility between determinism and free will:

Compatibilism is sometimes called soft determinism (William James's term) pejoratively. James accused them of creating a "quagmire of evasion" by stealing the name of freedom to mask their underlying determinism. Immanuel Kant called it a "wretched subterfuge" and "word jugglery". Kant's argument turns on the view that, while all empirical phenomena must result from determining causes, human thought introduces something seemingly not found elsewhere in nature—the ability to conceive of the world in terms of how it ought to be, or how it might otherwise be. For Kant, subjective reasoning is necessarily distinct from how the world is empirically. Because of its capacity to distinguish is from ought, reasoning can "spontaneously" originate new events without being itself determined by what already exists.

You need to come to terms with the simple truth that human free will is a reality which defies the short sighted logic conceived by our somewhat limited knowledge.

[ekim]

No one is free from temptation.
Our ability to consciously discern what is good or what is evil does not automatically lead us to do what we know to be good.  We all have the freedom to choose through conscious control of our thoughts, words and actions.

I am not a Christian, so let me tempt you with a couple of ideas.  The first is that your reply above indicates that you  are committing Adam's sin of 'eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil' and secondly your idea of (desire based) personal self centred 'conscious free will',i.e. my will be done, conflicts with 'Thy Will be done' in the prayer you probably repeat.

[Stranger]

You seem to be implying that my take on the reality of human free will as hilarious and weird nonsense.

Which yet again shows that you're not paying attention (or are just too afraid to address the actual point). I was referring to your particular argument and the way you seem totally unable to even reword it, let alone attempt to address the clear logical objections that people have put to you, and how you so often just run away from doing so with absurd claims that the existence of the argument prove you right.

This pretty much renders the rest of your post superfluous because, again, I've seen you cite Lewis (who is well known for dismal attempts at reasoning) and Kant. Quoting other sources that agree in some way or other is another avoidance response that you sometimes use to avoid addressing any of the specific objections that have been raised and having to think about your own argument - something that you appear to be terrified of having to do, for the reasons I stated. Once again, you've used this to avoid having to address any of the points I actually raised.

You also seem to have got yourself even more confused. If something is a "logical impossibility", then it's just impossible (in the same category as square circles) and has nothing to do with "short sighted logic" or "limited knowledge". You can't logically argue for a logical impossibility, yet you have claimed that you have logic on your side many times.

I will also raise (yet again) the point that you keep on claiming that your conception of free will is "demonstrable", when it quite clearly isn't. The thing that distinguishes it from determinism, or some combination of determinism and randomness, is the claim that you could have done differently in exactly the same circumstances, without that difference being random. This is very clearly not demonstrable because the only way to demonstrate it would be to literally wind back time, show that you could choose differently and then show that the difference wasn't random, both of which are clearly impossible.

Cue another avoidance response...

[Alan Burns]

I am not a Christian, so let me tempt you with a couple of ideas.  The first is that your reply above indicates that you  are committing Adam's sin of 'eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil' and secondly your idea of (desire based) personal self centred 'conscious free will',i.e. my will be done, conflicts with 'Thy Will be done' in the prayer you probably repeat.

The fall of humanity has already occurred.  Our knowledge of good and evil is with us and will remain as part of our earthly life.  There is no conflict in our prayer for God's will to be done and our gift of free will.  God could have made us as puppets to do his will, but there would be no point.  We are called to use our gift of free will to freely choose to follow God's laws and endeavour to do His will, but this does not involve God forcing a replacement of our will with His.  You should also note that within the Christian way of life, there is ample opportunity for us to employ our free will to live our lives to the full and enjoy all the legitimate pleasures provided in our earthly lives whilst adhering to our Christian faith.

[Dicky Underpants]

The fall of humanity has already occurred. 

When and how did it occur?

I do know what the Bible says, and I do know how various Christians interpret this. I'd just like to know how you interpret it.

[ekim]

(1) The fall of humanity has already occurred.  Our knowledge of good and evil is with us and will remain as part of our earthly life.  There is no conflict in our prayer for God's will to be done and our gift of free will.  God could have made us as puppets to do his will, but there would be no point.  We are called to use our gift of free will to freely choose to follow God's laws and endeavour to do His will, but this does not involve God forcing a replacement of our will with His. 
(2)You should also note that within the Christian way of life, there is ample opportunity for us to employ our free will to live our lives to the full and enjoy all the legitimate pleasures provided in our earthly lives whilst adhering to our Christian faith.

(1) Instead, there is a doctrine which threatens Hell Fire if you don't obey your God's Will and the Blessings of Heaven if you do.  This is not a free will but a will conditioned by a desire for pleasure versus a fear of eternal pain.
(2) Adhering to something means your are attached not free. Indoctrination processes tend to remove individual freedom and replace it with mass mind.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

(1) Instead, there is a doctrine which threatens Hell Fire if you don't obey your God's Will and the Blessings of Heaven if you do.  This is not a free will but a will conditioned by a desire for pleasure versus a fear of eternal pain.
(2) Adhering to something means your are attached not free. Indoctrination processes tend to remove individual freedom and replace it with mass mind.

We are all encultured and indoctrinated. If you think you aren't you are fooling yourself.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You seem to be implying that my take on the reality of human free will as hilarious and weird nonsense.

Rightly so, yes.

I know I am not alone in my way of thinking.

No doubt others are as mistaken as you are. So?

As I said in an earlier post, it was over fifty years ago when I fully realised that the concept of human free will is a logical impossibility.

You didn’t “realise” that at all – you just reached a conclusion on the basis of no or false reasoning.

I also knew that my free will was a demonstrable reality.

Again, no you didn’t "know" that at all. You may have believed it, but that’s all you did. If such a thing was demonstrable then, presumably, you would have demonstrated it by now rather than endlessly trotted out the same fallacies over and over again.

Some years later I came across the book "Miracles" by CS Lewis in which he devoted a full chapter in explaining how free will is incompatible with the workings of a material brain.

You’re on thin ice if you rely on Lewis for support but in any case why not just tell us then what his argument for incompatibility was? Presumably if it held water the whole of neuroscience would be agog if you did…   

He did not see the need to try to explain away our free will - he just accepted it as a miraculous reality.

“A miraculous reality” isn’t a reality at all – it’s what you’re left with when you have no other means of validating what you think or would like reality to be: magic.

I later came across the works of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the great German thinker whose concepts of the incompatibility of the workings of a human mind with material behaviour were very similar to mine.  Then there are the comments of the philosopher Immanuel Kant on compatibilists who endeavour to claim compatibility between determinism and free will:…

See above re Lewis – show us the money.

Compatibilism is sometimes called soft determinism (William James's term) pejoratively. James accused them of creating a "quagmire of evasion" by stealing the name of freedom to mask their underlying determinism. Immanuel Kant called it a "wretched subterfuge" and "word jugglery". Kant's argument turns on the view that, while all empirical phenomena must result from determining causes, human thought introduces something seemingly not found elsewhere in nature—the ability to conceive of the world in terms of how it ought to be, or how it might otherwise be. For Kant, subjective reasoning is necessarily distinct from how the world is empirically. Because of its capacity to distinguish is from ought, reasoning can "spontaneously" originate new events without being itself determined by what already exists.

Funny innit how even otherwise great minds can be in thrall to the argument from incredulity: “…while all empirical phenomena must result from determining causes, human thought introduces something seemingly not found elsewhere in nature—the ability to conceive of the world in terms of how it ought to be, or how it might otherwise be”. Lots of characteristics of emergent properties like “human thought” don’t appear in the components of brains either. So what?   

You need to come to terms with the simple truth…

Oh-oh, trouble ahead…

… that human free will is a reality which defies the short sighted logic conceived by our somewhat limited knowledge.

…and there it is. Logic doesn’t suddenly become “short sighted” when your attempts at it are inept. It’s still logic, whether or not you happen to like where it leads.

Try to understand this.

[Gordon]

he just accepted it as a miraculous reality.

That is a spectacular oxymoron - but a laughable oxymoron nonetheless.

[Alan Burns]

…and there it is. Logic doesn’t suddenly become “short sighted” when your attempts at it are inept. It’s still logic, whether or not you happen to like where it leads.

Whatever logic we perceive is based entirely on current human knowledge.
As I said in one of my previous posts, we have no idea how much we know about all there is to know.  What we do know for certain is that our knowledge of reality is incomplete.  So is it wise to base your beliefs and way of life on the logic derived from our somewhat incomplete knowledge of reality?  When the reality we perceive does not comply with what is predicted by "logic" should you be seeking some other way to deduce what is most important in our limited time on this earth?

[Stranger]

Alan

You also seem to have got yourself even more confused. If something is a "logical impossibility", then it's just impossible (in the same category as square circles) and has nothing to do with "short sighted logic" or "limited knowledge". You can't logically argue for a logical impossibility, yet you have claimed that you have logic on your side many times.

I will also raise (yet again) the point that you keep on claiming that your conception of free will is "demonstrable", when it quite clearly isn't. The thing that distinguishes it from determinism, or some combination of determinism and randomness, is the claim that you could have done differently in exactly the same circumstances, without that difference being random. This is very clearly not demonstrable because the only way to demonstrate it would be to literally wind back time, show that you could choose differently and then show that the difference wasn't random, both of which are clearly impossible.

Cue another avoidance response...

Of course simply ignoring the post and just answering ones around it that you presumably thought didn't challenge you as much is another avoidance response.

Whatever logic we perceive is based entirely on current human knowledge.
As I said in one of my previous posts, we have no idea how much we know about all there is to know.  What we do know for certain is that our knowledge of reality is incomplete.  So is it wise to base your beliefs and way of life on the logic derived from our somewhat incomplete knowledge of reality?  When the reality we perceive does not comply with what is predicted by "logic" should you be seeking some other way to deduce what is most important in our limited time on this earth?

And back to the thought-free repetition as if you've learnt your script by rote and have no understanding of it, and hence back to my theory (#45000) that you are afraid of thinking about it because you've invested far too mush in it to risk tinkering with it even in simple ways.

Here you are showing us (again) that you don't even understand what logic is, let alone how to use it. Logic is like mathematics, and in the formal case, it actually is mathematics. It is about abstract reasoning and what constructs are valid and what are not. It is not, therefore, based on our limited knowledge of the physical world.

The connection to the real world is just in whatever premises one starts with, and in your case your premiss is pretty much identical to your conclusion, so logic doesn't come into it except for the fact that it can easily be shown (and has been, many many times and by several different posters) that your absurd premiss is self-contradictory. Formally speaking, you have a contradiction of the form P ∧ ¬P (P and not P). This is invalid because of the Principle of Explosion. If we accepted such contradictions, then it is possible to formally prove literally anything at all (the moon is made of cheese, black is white, 1 = 325, anything you can think of).

So off you go again, with the mindless repetition of your inane script or simply running away. Anything but actually thinking about your own argument and why nobody is taking it seriously...

[Stranger]

Rightly so, yes.

Actually, for the record, I don't think Alan's take on free will is hilarious and weird, I think it's a very common mistake than many people make, just like any other things that most people get wrong, like Meet Mary, the Monty Hall problem (if anybody hasn't seen this, it's worth just reading the description of the problem at the top of the article and seeing what you think, before reading the answer), or problems in Bayesain reasoning.

This is well known and stems from the two ways the mind approaches problems: the 'quick and good enough most of the time' type that uses intuition, emotions, stereotypes, etc. to get to an 'answer' quickly, versus the more carefully thought through approach. See for example Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

What is hilarious and weird is Alan's desperation to cling on to his first 'quick and simple' conclusion and try to justify it 'logically' with his bizarre constructed script that he just endlessly repeats, like somebody who's learnt it by rote because he's now too afraid, having invested so much in it, to go back and think about it again.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Whatever logic we perceive is based entirely on current human knowledge.

Well, yes – anything at all we think we understand is “based entirely on current human knowledge”. 

As I said in one of my previous posts, we have no idea how much we know about all there is to know.

A point I have made often too (the “unknown unknowns" problem) but ok…

What we do know for certain is that our knowledge of reality is incomplete.

Pedantic point but we can’t claim to know anything “for certain”, but I agree that our knowledge of all there is to know seems highly likely to be incomplete yes. That’s why we have scientists (among others) to keep discovering more.

So is it wise to base your beliefs and way of life on the logic derived from our somewhat incomplete knowledge of reality?

Absent anything else distinguishable from just guessing, yes.

When the reality we perceive does not comply with what is predicted by "logic" should you be seeking some other way to deduce what is most important in our limited time on this earth?

Ah, now you’ve gone completely off the rails again. You’re privileging here “the knowledge we perceive” over the knowledge we’re capable of justifying as actually being knowledge by using the tools available to us (which themselves rest on logic). We perceive all sorts of things as reality that aren’t reality at all (a flat earth, blue veins, etc). This is because evolution has no mandate to map perception to reality – rather it maps just to the most useful models of reality. That’s why for example we might perceive rustling grass as a tiger about to eat us so we run away, even though it could just be the wind. And when enough people who run away survive to pass the behaviour to their offspring (as opposed to the ones who get eaten by tigers) then eventually that false but useful perception of reality becomes embedded.       

Anyway, the point here is that logic-based methods are all we have to distinguish reality from our (frequently skewed) perceptions of reality. Absent such methods relying on perception alone is little better than just guessing.

Coda: just to add that, if nonetheless you think logic is too limited a tool to justify your perceptions of reality then it does you no favours to keep attempting it nonetheless, but ineptly (see the long list of logical fallacies you’ve attempted here). Rather than keep posting bad logic and then complaining that logic itself isn’t up to the job, surely it would serve you better would it not to find some other means to bridge the justification gap between your various perceptions and your claims of reality?

[ekim]

We are all encultured and indoctrinated. If you think you aren't you are fooling yourself.

This is a reason why Alan's notion of free will is naive.  It is not a truth as he tends to present it. A task often presented by a variety of 'spiritual' teachers is first to recognise those attachments and then to practise a method to transcend them. It can often come at a cost, sometimes extreme, like a crucifixion or being executed for heresy.

[Alan Burns]

Here you are showing us (again) that you don't even understand what logic is, let alone how to use it. Logic is like mathematics, and in the formal case, it actually is mathematics. It is about abstract reasoning and what constructs are valid and what are not. It is not, therefore, based on our limited knowledge of the physical world.

Logic or mathematics would not exist without knowledge of the physical world.  They are used in an endeavour to make sense of our physical world , to make predictions of physical behaviour and to aid human creativity and design of material entities.  Maths and logic are irrevicably intertwined with our perception of the physical world.

The connection to the real world is just in whatever premises one starts with, and in your case your premiss is pretty much identical to your conclusion, so logic doesn't come into it except for the fact that it can easily be shown (and has been, many many times and by several different posters) that your absurd premiss is self-contradictory. Formally speaking, you have a contradiction of the form P ∧ ¬P (P and not P). This is invalid because of the Principle of Explosion. If we accepted such contradictions, then it is possible to formally prove literally anything at all (the moon is made of cheese, black is white, 1 = 325, anything you can think of).

If your logical deductions fail to match up with reality then you must re examine the premiss on which your deductions are based rather than try to deny the reality in order to fit in with flawed logic.

So off you go again, with the mindless repetition of your inane script or simply running away. Anything but actually thinking about your own argument and why nobody is taking it seriously...

It is my ability to think rather than react to past events over which I have no control which leads me to conclude that your logic is flawed.

[Sebastian Toe]

It is my ability to think rather than react to past events over which I have no control which leads me to conclude that your logic is flawed.

If your logical deductions fail to match up with reality then you must re examine the premises on which your deductions are based rather than try to deny the reality in order to fit in with flawed logic.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Give Alan some real support, Vlad. Tell us how the 'soul' exercises its freedom of choice, and how it interacts with the body.

Thanks for the invitation Dicky, as you know I don't know whether there is freedom of choice but then neither do you but in terms of a conscious self which is what I think a soul is, those pushing the materialistic/deterministic line have to cross the explanatory gap as Alan continuously points out. So I am with Searle in saying that if the soul turns out to be a deterministic mechanism that would need to be demonstrated. I am very sympathetic with Chalmers who thinks science might not actually have the chops to ever explain consciousness.
What I feel we are being offered by Alan's opponents is either scientism or eliminationism where the conscious self is merely an illusion.

What I think cannot be ''determined'' in the reductionist materialist sense is the choice to follow God or reject him since God is not physical and this may extend to aspects in which God has a massive stake like morality, also not adequately described by science. Again great explanatory gaps remain between the Gene and altruism and altruism and immorality.

[Stranger]

Logic or mathematics would not exist without knowledge of the physical world.  They are used in an endeavour to make sense of our physical world , to make predictions of physical behaviour and to aid human creativity and design of material entities.  Maths and logic are irrevicably intertwined with our perception of the physical world.

Although the initial, primitive concepts, like the natural numbers, originated in the world (although they are now defined in a much more abstract way - built up from set theory and the existence of the empty set), the principles and techniques are applicable way beyond applied mathematics (which is what you're describing) and even in applied mathematics, nothing changed in mathematics or logic when our understanding of the physical world changed drastically, first with relativity, and then with quantum mechanics. The necessary mathematics and logic already existed. Today we can use logic (every mathematical proof is a formal logical argument) to reason about, for example, infinite sets. So we can be certain that continuum infinity is 'bigger' (has a greater cardinality) than countable infinity, despite the fact that neither may actually exist in reality, not to mention even larger infinities than either (an infinite number of them, in fact).

ETA: And, of course, certainly in physics, progress is impossible without first exploring the 'space' of logical possibilities using mathematics and logic. There was no way to test relativity or quantum mechanics without formulating them mathematically, so they could make exact, numerical predictions that could be tested. Today, the attempts to unite the two theories are being carried out pretty much entirely in the abstract space of mathematical (logical) possibilities. Logic alone will not tell us which hypothesis is right (matches the real world) but the first hint of a logical contradiction or inconsistency will absolutely rule out the associated conjecture.

If your logical deductions fail to match up with reality then you must re examine the premiss on which your deductions are based rather than try to deny the reality in order to fit in with flawed logic.

Yes, it's high time you did just that.

It is my ability to think rather than react to past events over which I have no control which leads me to conclude that your logic is flawed.

This doesn't even match your sentence above. Flawed logic (being invalid) is different to incorrect premises (being unsound). What's more, you have given us exactly nothing in the way of reasoning or evidence that would suggest that your ability to think (such as it is) is not, in itself, a (very complicated) reaction to past events (mainly those that shaped you as a person).

All you have is personal incredulity, childish foot-stamping, idiotic claims that your notion of freedom is "demonstrable", when it clearly isn't (#45007), and equally dimwitted nonsense about people's reasoned arguments being evidence for it (that you so often use to avoid having to think about your own script that doesn't contain any answers to the points raised).

As I have pointed out many times, your notion of 'freedom' and daft phrases like 'conscious control of thought processes' are not only illogical, they don't even match everyday experience, if one does even as small amount of honest introspection. It's not even "the way it seems" except, perhaps, as an assumption that one would make if you've never paused for a moment to think about it, or looked inwards to what is actually going on in your mind.

[Stranger]

Thanks for the invitation Dicky, as you know I don't know whether there is freedom of choice but then neither do you but in terms of a conscious self which is what I think a soul is, those pushing the materialistic/deterministic line have to cross the explanatory gap as Alan continuously points out. So I am with Searle in saying that if the soul turns out to be a deterministic mechanism that would need to be demonstrated. I am very sympathetic with Chalmers who thinks science might not actually have the chops to ever explain consciousness.
What I feel we are being offered by Alan's opponents is either scientism or eliminationism where the conscious self is merely an illusion.

What I think cannot be ''determined'' in the reductionist materialist sense is the choice to follow God or reject him since God is not physical and this may extend to aspects in which God has a massive stake like morality, also not adequately described by science. Again great explanatory gaps remain between the Gene and altruism and altruism and immorality.

What a concept salad (cf. word salad). The main issue here with Alan is about his conception of 'free will', which, after a lot of work, we've managed to discover means that he thinks we could have made different choices than the ones we did, even in exactly the same circumstances and state of mind, so if we could rerun time, we might have made different choices, and further that those differences would not be random. This is logically self-contradictory because it means that the mind is both a deterministic system (no randomness) and not a deterministic system (could have gone differently). Such contradictions are invalid because of the Principle of Explosion, as I explained in #45015.

This point stands regardless of any explanation of consciousness or morality.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What a concept salad (cf. word salad). The main issue here with Alan is about his conception of 'free will', which, after a lot of work, we've managed to discover means that he thinks we could have made different choices than the ones we did, even in exactly the same circumstances and state of mind, so if we could rerun time, we might have made different choices, and further that those differences would not be random. This is logically self-contradictory because it means that the mind is both a deterministic system (no randomness) and not a deterministic system (could have gone differently). Such contradictions are invalid because of the Principle of Explosion, as I explained in #45015.

This point stands regardless of any explanation of consciousness or morality.

This sounds as though it depends on the ''re running of time'' which is one of those bad speculative ideas. I thought I made it clear that we might have to, on the strength of actual demonstration concede the deterministic position. Is God determined though? Well no because whatever determined God would be greater than God and would take the title. If the mind and that which it responds to are all determined then sadly the Calvinists would have got it right......although how that helps atheism, I know not.

On the other hand if a mind were a singular entity you are right, but if it wasn't? what then?......a determined part and a God detector, perhaps?