Searching for GOD...

[Sebastian Toe]

To have conscious control of your thoughts all you need is a controller (You) with conscious awareness coupled with the ability to interact with the physical processes going on in your brain.

The interaction if it exists,  takes time though, doesn't it?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You can't expect a continuous stream of reasoned arguments to drop out of unguided thought processes beyond your conscious control.  If your thought processes are not guided by conscious control you should expect a lot more unreasoned arguments than reasoned ones.

Well, as you seem to be the king of the unreasoned argument maybe you have a point here after all…

Yet again though: “a continuous stream of reasoned arguments to drop out of unguided thought processes beyond your conscious control” is just incoherent. Any such “conscious control” would itself require thinking of its own, so (by your own “reasoning”) when you declare that thinking must be “consciously controlled” by something else then there must have been something consciously controlling that too. And if you think that grandfather entity is then doing some conscious controlling, then in turn its thinking must be controlled by something else etc back through an infinite regression.

Even leaving aside the reasoning and evidence we do have for a naturalistic explanation for consciousness, surely even you can grasp the problem your infinite regression alternative gives you can’t you – and for the matter the problem you give yourself by trying to get off that hook with an “it’s magic innit” “soul” or some such drivel?

Can’t you?

Oh, and what has any of this to do with your, “Just to add that for every specific sequence of 52 successfully dealt there would have to be approximately 80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277823 failed attempts”?

What point did you think you were making there?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

What is it that can have regard for reason and evidence?
What is it that can dig deeper that the superficial level?
Indeed, what is it that can recognise what constitutes a superficial level?

You. If I gave you next week’s winning lottery numbers presumably you’d decide to enter them on a ticket (assuming you believed me). You’d be “free” to do that inasmuch as no-one could stop you, just as you’d be free finally actually to consider and address the arguments here that have corrected you over and over again. These decisions and others though wouldn’t require an evidence-free, logically incoherent little man at the controls to do the deciding for you because your experience of independent agency somehow separate from the rest of you is illusory. Useful perhaps, but illusory nonetheless. The “you” that does all this is a single, integrated, fantastically complex system – not some kind of automaton with a bizarre, undetectable little homunculus pulling your levers. This is the thinking of infants and you need to grow out of it.     

Why is this so hard for you to understand?  ¬       

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Only if you regard the human brain being solely under the mechanistic time related cause and effect scenario we observe in material behaviour.

Leaving aside for now whether the universe is in fact wholly deterministic, why wouldn't I?

More to the point, why wouldn't you?

To have conscious control of your thoughts…

Stop there. We don’t have “conscious control of our thoughts” – the notion is idiotic, incoherent, self-contradictory and unnecessary. 

Try – really, really try – to understand why this is will you?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Leaving aside for now whether the universe is in fact wholly deterministic, why wouldn't I?

More to the point, why wouldn't you?

Stop there. We don’t have “conscious control of our thoughts” – the notion is idiotic, incoherent, self-contradictory and unnecessary. 

Try – really, really try – to understand why this is will you?

You seem to be in denial of your own conscious control in order to fit in with the short sighted logic derived from our perception of material behaviour.  Our conscious control of thoughts is a reality which is demonstrated every time you apply your ability to reason things out and draw consciously verified conclusions.  The fact that you can't envisage an explanation for this reality can't be used to deny it exists.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You seem to be in denial of your own conscious control…

No, I’m in “denial” of the idiocy of just declaring there to be “conscious control of our thoughts” for the reasons that keep being given to you without rebuttal.

…in order to fit in with the short sighted logic…

(Wearily and yet again) logic cannot be “short-sighted”; it’s either sound or not sound, and you cannot just dismiss it out of hand when it produces outcomes you happen to find discommodious.

Could you try to understand this much at least?   

…derived from our perception of material behaviour.

No, it’s derived from reasoning. It may be verified by “our perception of material behaviour” but it’s quite possible to derive that if A > B and B > C, then A must be > C without “perceiving” any "material behaviour” at all.

Look, try to understand: when logic falsifies your subjective opinions, then it’s your subjective opinions that are ”short-sighted”, not the logic that falsifies them. See whether you can work out for yourself why this must be the case.           

Our conscious control of thoughts is a reality which is demonstrated every time you apply your ability to reason things out and draw consciously verified conclusions.

Utter bollocks. Again.

The fact that you can't envisage an explanation for this reality can't be used to deny it exists.

No, the fact that “this reality” is actually just your opinion about a supposed reality that’s quickly, simply and robustly dismantled by even a cursory logical analysis just bears out the maxim I just gave you: when subjective opinion and logical analysis contradict each other, subjective opinion is wrong.     

Now write that down 100 times or until it finally sinks in, whichever happens the sooner.

[Alan Burns]

No, the fact that “this reality” is actually just your opinion about a supposed reality that’s quickly, simply and robustly dismantled by even a cursory logical analysis just bears out the maxim I just gave you: when subjective opinion and logical analysis contradict each other, subjective opinion is wrong.     

But in order for me to be able to form a subjective opinion, I would need the conscious control which your logical analysis denies.

[torridon]

You can't expect a continuous stream of reasoned arguments to drop out of unguided thought processes beyond your conscious control.  If your thought processes are not guided by conscious control you should expect a lot more unreasoned arguments than reasoned ones.

Your thought process reflect your underlying hopes and fears, which are always there under the surface.  You have it all back to front.  Nobody can choose which emotions to have, or which thought should or should not come to mind.

[Gordon]

But in order for me to be able to form a subjective opinion, I would need the conscious control which your logical analysis denies.

So, is my subjective revulsion of certain foods under my conscious control? It doesn't feel as if it is, since my almost instant phobic reaction when unexpectedly confronted by horrors such mayonnaise feels instinctive rather than considered, and not something that I can consciously control.

[Alan Burns]

Your thought process reflect your underlying hopes and fears, which are always there under the surface.  You have it all back to front.  Nobody can choose which emotions to have, or which thought should or should not come to mind.

No, you have things the wrong way round, Torri.
The past is determined by the present.
The past has been and gone - it does not define what happens in the present.
Our conscious awareness of the past exists in the present.
The problem is that the present is elusive to any human investigation.  We can't examine the present - Whatever we perceive has already occurred.  We can use our knowledge of past events to predict what will occur, but our predictions are not always accurate.  I do not profess to know how the human mind works, but I do know that I have the freedom to control my own thought processes - how could I possibly make such a statement without conscious control?

[Alan Burns]

So, is my subjective revulsion of certain foods under my conscious control? It doesn't feel as if it is, since my almost instant phobic reaction when unexpectedly confronted by horrors such mayonnaise feels instinctive rather than considered, and not something that I can consciously control.

We do not control our natural reaction to such things as certain food - they are a biologically defined consequence of what we eat.  What we do have control of are the thought processes involved in forming opinions or arriving at reasoned conclusions.

[Gordon]

We do not control our natural reaction to such things as certain food - they are a biologically defined consequence of what we eat.

Other people like what I abhor - so what exactly is a 'biologically defined consequence' in this context?

Would you not say that it could be a sub-conscious personal trait over which I have no conscious control over how it effects my thinking (as in intense feelings of revulsion about certain foods) or my behaviour (such as the efforts I take in restaurants to avoid my phobia)?   

What we do have control of are the thought processes involved in forming opinions or arriving at reasoned conclusions.

See above, which is an example that shows I am clearly not in full conscious control of my thoughts, or any associated behaviours, in certain situations.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But in order for me to be able to form a subjective opinion, I would need the conscious control which your logical analysis denies.

Why do you just ignore everything that people take the time and trouble to explain to you? Does it occur to you that if you tried to engage with the arguments and realised you had no rebuttals you wouldn’t keep posting idiocy like this?

Look, more in hope than in expectation let’s try a different approach to your problem with logic. Each time you blunder into a logical fallacy that’s explained to you you just ignore he explanation, and then try the same fallacy/ies a bit later on. Then, when the mountain of wrong arguments you’ve tried gets too much even for you to ignore you just declare that logic itself is the wrong tool for justifying your assertions, but you never suggest an alternative method to do the job – ie your unqualified assertions are all we have.     

I’ve taken the time to explain to you that when subjective opinion and logical analysis contradict each other, subjective opinion is wrong so let’s try to explain why that is in case that finally lets in even a glimmer of light for you. Subjective opinions are just that – they are subjective and they are opinions – we all have them about all sorts of things. Sometimes many of them will coalesce into something you wrongly call “the reality we all perceive”, and often they will contradict each other. How then should we determines the right opinions from the wrong ones? That’s right – logic. What logic gives us is an objective currency of reasoning that’s indifferent to our opinions about anything, and instead considers just the coherence and cogency of the ideas themselves.

Can you see why that might be important? Yes, that’s right – it’s because different subjective opinions are epistemically equivalent no matter what they are, whereas those that survive logical analysis become useful as facts and those that fall apart under scrutiny (as your assertions and declarations always do) but claim to be facts nonetheless can be dismissed.

No doubt you’ll ignore all this and will respond with the same mindless mantras that you always reach for, but nonetheless you have no excuse now for not knowing why it is that when rhetorical logic and subjective opinions contradict each other, it’s the subjective opinions that are wrong.           

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Why do you just ignore everything that people take the time and trouble to explain to you? Does it occur to you that if you tried to engage with the arguments and realised you had no rebuttals you wouldn’t keep posting idiocy like this?

Look, more in hope than in expectation let’s try a different approach to your problem with logic. Each time you blunder into a logical fallacy that’s explained to you you just ignore he explanation, and then try the same fallacy/ies a bit later on. Then, when the mountain of wrong arguments you’ve tried gets too much even for you to ignore you just declare that logic itself is the wrong tool for justifying your assertions, but you never suggest an alternative method to do the job – ie your unqualified assertions are all we have.     

I’ve taken the time to explain to you that when subjective opinion and logical analysis contradict each other, subjective opinion is wrong so let’s try to explain why that is in case that finally lets in even a glimmer of light for you. Subjective opinions are just that – they are subjective and they are opinions – we all have them about all sorts of things. Sometimes many of them will coalesce into something you wrongly call “the reality we all perceive”, and often they will contradict each other. How then should we determines the right opinions from the wrong ones? That’s right – logic. What logic gives us is an objective currency of reasoning that’s indifferent to our opinions about anything, and instead considers just the coherence and cogency of the ideas themselves.

Can you see why that might be important? Yes, that’s right – it’s because different subjective opinions are epistemically equivalent no matter what they are, whereas those that survive logical analysis become useful as facts and those that fall apart under scrutiny (as your assertions and declarations always do) but claim to be facts nonetheless can be dismissed.

No doubt you’ll ignore all this and will respond with the same mindless mantras that you always reach for, but nonetheless you have no excuse now for not knowing why it is that when rhetorical logic and subjective opinions contradict each other, it’s the subjective opinions that are wrong.         

But none of this offers an explanation of how I can form an objective opinion, and scrutinise it, without any means of conscious control of the thought processes involved.

[Alan Burns]

Dear Bluehillside,

Your logical analysis concerning the reality or not of conscious control of our thought processes is inherently flawed by your presumption that our conscious awareness is an emergent property of material reactions.  Using this premise you are bound to conclude that our conscious awareness can have no control over the reactions from which it emerges.  It is the inevitable materialist position.  You stick rigidly to this logical? conclusion no matter how much you or I (or anyone else on this forum) exhibit in writing posts which offer ample evidence of our capacity to consciously think things out and draw conclusions.  Can you not accept that our demonstrable capability to contemplate the reality we live in and use reasoning to form consciously validated conclusions offers evidence that our conscious awareness may comprise more than mere emergence from material reactions?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But none of this offers an explanation of how I can form an objective opinion, and scrutinise it, without any means of conscious control of the thought processes involved.

Yes it does, because a single, integrated system requires no stand alone, magic man “you” to do the “conscious controlling”, which would in any case be self-contradictory and thus self-negating because such a “you” would itself have to think about which levers to pull, and so on forever through an infinite regress.

If you could be bothered or were honest enough actually to read and to attempt at least to engage with the explanations you’ve been given here about this countless time without rebuttal perhaps you wouldn’t just repeat by rote the same idiocies as if nothing had been explained to you at all. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Your logical analysis concerning the reality or not of conscious control of our thought processes is inherently flawed by your presumption that our conscious awareness is an emergent property of material reactions.

It’s not a “presumption”, it’s a reasoned deduction based on an analysis of the available options. Please stop poisoning the well by using pejorative language in place of arguments (yet another fallacy by the way).

Using this premise you are bound to conclude that our conscious awareness can have no control over the reactions from which it emerges.  It is the inevitable materialist position.  You stick rigidly to this logical? conclusion no matter how much you or I (or anyone else on this forum) exhibit in writing posts which offer ample evidence of our capacity to consciously think things out and draw conclusions.

That don’t offer ample evidence of that at all, or for that matter any evidence whatsoever of that. What they actually offer is exactly what you’d expect to see from the naturalistic model of consciousness that gives us the useful but ultimately illusory experience of agency. You really should know this by now, given how many times it’s been explained to you with no rebuttal at all.   

Can you not accept that our demonstrable capability to contemplate the reality we live in and use reasoning to form consciously validated conclusions offers evidence that our conscious awareness may comprise more than mere emergence from material reactions?

Not until you can finally provide a validating argument for that reason- and evidence-denying assertion that contradicts everything we know reason and evidence to indicate so far, no.

Look, I just took the time to explain to you why when your subjective opinions and gut feelings are contradicted by logical argument then your subjective opinions and gut feelings are wrong. In reply you’ve just ignored that argument and posted more of your subjective opinions and gut feelings as they should nonetheless be privileged over the analysis that falsifies them.

Why would you want to expose yourself to ridicule by doing that rather than try at least finally to address the arguments?

We know what your subjective opinions and gut feelings are. We should do – you’ve repeated them ad nauseam here no matter how wrong they’ve been shown to be. If the only response to this Reply you’re capable of is to reach for yet another repetition of the same subjective opinions and gut feelings, please don’t bother – they’re rhetorically worthless.   

[torridon]

No, you have things the wrong way round, Torri.
The past is determined by the present.

No, you have it the wrong way round, the present is determined by the past.  The arrow time goes forwards, not backwards

[torridon]

We can use our knowledge of past events to predict what will occur, but our predictions are not always accurate.  I do not profess to know how the human mind works, but I do know that I have the freedom to control my own thought processes - how could I possibly make such a statement without conscious control?

We make such statements as the thoughts occur to us.  No one can control how their mind works at a fundamental level.  Thoughts are not things that we consciously control, thoughts are things that happen, that we experience.  The idea that we could choose which thoughts to have is just bonkers.

[Stranger]

Your logical analysis concerning the reality or not of conscious control of our thought processes...

"Concious control of thought processes" is still meaningless bullshit.

It really is dishonest of you to keep on using phrases like this until you're provided a logically meaningful definition.

You stick rigidly to this logical? conclusion no matter how much you or I (or anyone else on this forum) exhibit in writing posts which offer ample evidence of our capacity to consciously think things out and draw conclusions.

Yet again, you keep on making this absurd statement about our posts being evidence for your bullshit idea of freedom without ever making the logical connection. This has been pointed out to you so many times, yet you just ignore it and go on posting unsupported claims. It's difficult to see this as anything by just lying to suit your cause.

Yet again, Alan, it's not up to other people to explain minds, it's up to you to prove or provide evidence of your claim that minds must be god-magic (burden of proof).

The very least you would have to do is what Penrose failed to do, and show that minds can't be algorithmic. To date, you have provided bugger all that goes anywhere near to showing this.

So, make a simple start and tell us why it would be impossible for a computer (even in principle, with unlimited power) to produce any of the posts you've seen here - without meaningless gibberish about "concious control of thought processes" or "the present" or any irrelevant attempts to shift the burden of proof onto others to provide a full explanation of how it might be possible.

[Alan Burns]

So, make a simple start and tell us why it would be impossible for a computer (even in principle, with unlimited power) to produce any of the posts you've seen here - without meaningless gibberish about "concious control of thought processes" or "the present" or any irrelevant attempts to shift the burden of proof onto others to provide a full explanation of how it might be possible.

It would be impossible for any computer to mimic any of these posts without the conscious freedom exercised by the people who program them.

[Stranger]

It would be impossible for any computer to mimic any of these posts without the conscious freedom exercised by the people who program them.

Are you really as dimwitted as your responses seem to suggest?

If it is possible for an algorithm (even in principle) to do as well as a human mind (regardless of if it was produced by a human mind or evolution), then there is nothing magical about minds and your entire 'argument' fails.

Write out 200 times: "I have the burden of proof to show that human minds require god-magic." Who knows, perhaps it might sink in...?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It would be impossible for any computer to mimic any of these posts without the conscious freedom exercised by the people who program them.

1. They’re getting closer though:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-64959346

2. You’ve missed the point in any case. You were asked to justify your unqualified assertion that no computer even in principle could ever be conscious. I have no idea why you think that, not least because you’ve never attempted to tell us why you think that despite being asked to do so on several occasions.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB,

1. They’re getting closer though:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-64959346

2. You’ve missed the point in any case. You were asked to justify your unqualified assertion that no computer even in principle could ever be conscious. I have no idea why you think that, not least because you’ve never attempted to tell us why you think that despite being asked to do so on several occasions.   

How would you know your message posting computer was conscious rather than just intelligent? Although I accept as you continually remind us ...that posting here doesn't necessarily imply intelligence.

[Stranger]

How would you know your message posting computer was conscious rather than just intelligent?

How would you? This is just trying to shift the burden of proof - like Alan is continually trying to do. It's entirely up to those claiming that concious minds need god-magic to make the case that they do.

The point was in response to Alan's daft claim that people's posts were evidence of god-magic. If a computer (conscious or otherwise) could produce something as good, then they cannot be regarded as needing god-magic.