Searching for GOD...

[Nearly Sane]

One of the problems is he throws this in as if it's something deep and important to his nonsense notion of 'free will' but then won't even say what he means by it. It could mean something trivial and irrelevant, like "I can decide to think about my plans for next week now" but that couldn't be less relevant to his point.

It's almost like it's meant to be a distraction from the empty void where his 'sound logic' is supposed to be.

Agree. I'm just pointing out that illustrating that he's not 'consciously choosing' some thought isn't dealing with the claim.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

I didn't suggest it did. I was pointing out that your approach doesn't deal with that.

The claim has been dealt with countless times, but AB just ignores all that and repeats it endlessly nonetheless. My “approach” therefore was more akin to, say, James Randi’s approach to Uri Geller’s claims of doing real magic – he set up a test and Geller couldn’t satisfy it. That’s not to say that Geller necessarily couldn’t have gone next door and performed any manner of magical feats, but it is to say that when asked to justify his claim he failed.         

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Do you have an argument to justify your assertion of “overwhelming evidence” for any such thing?
 

First, you cannot enlighten the unenlightenable.

Second, it’s not my job to try. You’re the one making the claim to be able to “consciously control my thoughts” (which you’ve now shown that you can’t do when asked by the way) so it’s your job to justify your claim. Where’s your justifying argument for it?

You appear to be consciously evading this simple question:

If your conscious self is not responsible for composing these replies, please enlighten me.

[Alan Burns]

And yet again: the role of consciousness is irrelevant ......

You vastly underestimate the  role of your conscious awareness.

All that you know exists in your conscious awareness.
Without conscious awareness you would not exist.
You are your conscious awareness.

[torridon]

You vastly underestimate the  role of your conscious awareness.

All that you know exists in your conscious awareness.
Without conscious awareness you would not exist.
You are your conscious awareness.

The vast majority of what I know is not in my conscious awareness, it is stored in memory but it can be called into conscious awareness according to what my mind deems to be important in the current moment.  It is a process of prioritisation and this is not a process that we have conscious control over; rather our conscious awareness is the resultant outcome of this.

[Stranger]

And yet again: the role of consciousness is irrelevant ......

You vastly underestimate the  role of your conscious awareness.

Truly staggering. How the hell do you reconcile such blatant dishonesty with your supposed Christian faith? What happened to the ninth commandment? You extracted a part of what I said from its context in a way that totally changed its meaning.

I said:

"And yet again: the role of consciousness is irrelevant to proving god-magic or even that minds are non-algorithmic. Conciousness itself could be perfectly deterministic and algorithmic."

Was that just too hard for you to consider? Or were you too afraid to think about it, perhaps?

Anyway, there couldn't be a more obvious case of a straw man fallacy.

All that you know exists in your conscious awareness.
Without conscious awareness you would not exist.
You are your conscious awareness.

Three more instances of argument by assertion.

The first is totally absurd and the second two are questionable and also irrelevant to to proving god-magic.

Totals:
Shifting the burden of proof 2
Straw man 2
Assertion 7
Ambiguity 4

That's 15 silly, basic logical mistakes since your post #45373 just three days ago.

Still no hint of the sound logic you claimed to have, so again: were you lying, did you not understand the term, or do you now realise you can't do it? If none of those, why don't you stop making a fool of yourself and get on with it?

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

The claim has been dealt with countless times, but AB just ignores all that and repeats it endlessly nonetheless. My “approach” therefore was more akin to, say, James Randi’s approach to Uri Geller’s claims of doing real magic – he set up a test and Geller couldn’t satisfy it. That’s not to say that Geller necessarily couldn’t have gone next door and performed any manner of magical feats, but it is to say that when asked to justify his claim he failed.       

  Which is meaningless to a claim that is generalised rather than specific. Besides in the case you're trying with Alan, it's like saying to someone who says 'I can swim', try swimming if I attach a ton weight to you. You've rigged the game and it does nothing to disprove Alan's claim.


That said both Alan and Geller are making nonsensical claims even if Geller's is somewhat easier to comprehend.

[Alan Burns]

I said:

"And yet again: the role of consciousness is irrelevant to proving god-magic or even that minds are non-algorithmic. Conciousness itself could be perfectly deterministic and algorithmic."

I stand by what I said - I did not mean to use your quote out of context.  You do vastly underestimate the role of consciousness.
If your claim for consciousness to be perfectly deterministic and algorithmic, this effectively reduces to role of consciousness to be a mere spectator with no power of its own.

I recall yesterday's Gospel reading in which Jesus cures a blind man, but is reprimanded by the Pharisees for doing this on the Sabbath.  When being interrogated, the man simply says "I was blind and now I can see".  Reflecting the words used in John Newton's famous song, Amazing Grace, "was blind, but now I see".

[Stranger]

I stand by what I said - I did not mean to use your quote out of context.  You do vastly underestimate the role of consciousness.
If your claim for consciousness to be perfectly deterministic and algorithmic, this effectively reduces to role of consciousness to be a mere spectator with no power of its own.

As I've already explained why this isn't the case many times before, I'll just note that it's an argumentum ad consequentiam fallacy.

ETA: Also, I didn't make the claim that consciousness was deterministic and algorithmic, I said it could be. Again, it's your burden of proof to show that it couldn't possibly be, and then go on to show that there must be god-magic.

I recall yesterday's Gospel reading in which Jesus cures a blind man, but is reprimanded by the Pharisees for doing this on the Sabbath.  When being interrogated, the man simply says "I was blind and now I can see".  Reflecting the words used in John Newton's famous song, Amazing Grace, "was blind, but now I see".

And your point is..... missing.

Totals:
Shifting the burden of proof 2
Straw man 2
Assertion 7
Ambiguity 4
Appeal to consequences 1

Now running at 16 basic logic mistakes in three days.

Where is the 'sound logic' you claimed to have?

[ekim]

this effectively reduces to role of consciousness to be a mere spectator with no power of its own.

It may be that 'consciousness' (whatever it is) has no power, neither positive nor negative. It may simply be a neutral observer and that what you think of as its power is simply the driving forces of subconscious/unconscious desires which it has become attached to. This would be where your notion of 'conscious free will' breaks down. If you think otherwise then it is for you to indicate how this can be demonstrated.

[Alan Burns]

And your point is..... missing.

The point I was making is that people who are blind to the reality of God's love and the power of the human soul may not realise their blindness until a moment of enlightenment.

I think the fact that you missed the point aptly illustrates the point I was making. 

[ekim]

The point I was making is that people who are blind to the reality of God's love and the power of the human soul may not realise their blindness until a moment of enlightenment.

There are many problems with that point. Some revolve around the lack of definitions of 'God','Love',and 'Soul'. Some revolve around those who declare 'enlightenment'.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

Which is meaningless to a claim that is generalised rather than specific.

No, for the reason I just gave. The generalised claim “I can consciously control my thoughts” has been rebutted countless times here (because there’s no evidence for it, because a “controller” would itself have to be thinking so it would lead to infinite regress etc) without a counter-argument in response – instead all AB does is to repeat the same mistake over and over again.

As the effort seemed to be pointless therefore, instead I tried an “OK, show me then” – ie, demonstrate this supposed ability in the (as it turned out forlorn) hope that when he realised that he couldn’t do it (because he did picture an elephant etc no matter how hard he tried not to) he might grasp that he can’t do what he says he can do. Nothing more, nothing less.     

Besides in the case you're trying with Alan, it's like saying to someone who says 'I can swim', try swimming if I attach a ton weight to you. You've rigged the game and it does nothing to disprove Alan's claim.

That’s a false analogy. There’s no rational argument to suggest that swimming can’t be done. A better one would be if AB had claimed to be able to fly unaided and, was told countless times why he can’t (because humans lack the muscle mass, hollow bones or whatever) only for him just to say over and over again “but I can fly, but I can fly” (or perhaps, “you seem to be ignoring the obvious truth that I can fly”). When arguments remained unaddressed, I might well then say “OK then show me – jump out of a window and see what happens” in the hope that he’d realise experientially that he cannot do what he thinks he can do.

Adding a ton weight would be unnecessary for the analogy to work, and the game isn’t rigged because it does disprove Alan’s claim that he can do something (notice that he didn’t say, “I didn’t picture an elephant” or ”I didn’t picture a banana” here, preferring instead to tell us that he didn’t picture something else as if that was relevant).           

That said both Alan and Geller are making nonsensical claims even if Geller's is somewhat easier to comprehend.

Quite.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The point I was making is that people who are blind to the reality of God's love and the power of the human soul may not realise their blindness until a moment of enlightenment.

I think the fact that you missed the point aptly illustrates the point I was making.   

No, the actual point here is that you have no argument to justify your unqualified claim that there is such a thing as “God's love and the power of the human soul”. You should start there rather than just accuse others of being “blind” to something you just declare to be the case but cannot demonstrate.

[Stranger]

The point I was making is that people who are blind to the reality of God's love and the power of the human soul may not realise their blindness until a moment of enlightenment.

I think the fact that you missed the point aptly illustrates the point I was making. 

Begging the question fallacy. You're on a roll today, Alan.

Totals:
Shifting the burden of proof 2
Straw man 2
Assertion 7
Ambiguity 4
Appeal to consequences 1
Begging the question 1

That's 17 basic logic mistakes in three days.

Where is the sound logic you claimed to have?

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

No, for the reason I just gave. The generalised claim “I can consciously control my thoughts” has been rebutted countless times here (because there’s no evidence for it, because a “controller” would itself have to be thinking so it would lead to infinite regress etc) without a counter-argument in response – instead all AB does is to repeat the same mistake over and over again.

As the effort seemed to be pointless therefore, instead I tried an “OK, show me then” – ie, demonstrate this supposed ability in the (as it turned out forlorn) hope that when he realised that he couldn’t do it (because he did picture an elephant etc no matter how hard he tried not to) he might grasp that he can’t do what he says he can do. Nothing more, nothing less.     

That’s a false analogy. There’s no rational argument to suggest that swimming can’t be done. A better one would be if AB had claimed to be able to fly unaided and, was told countless times why he can’t (because humans lack the muscle mass, hollow bones or whatever) only for him just to say over and over again “but I can fly, but I can fly” (or perhaps, “you seem to be ignoring the obvious truth that I can fly”). When arguments remained unaddressed, I might well then say “OK then show me – jump out of a window and see what happens” in the hope that he’d realise experientially that he cannot do what he thinks he can do.

Adding a ton weight would be unnecessary for the analogy to work, and the game isn’t rigged because it does disprove Alan’s claim that he can do something (notice that he didn’t say, “I didn’t picture an elephant” or ”I didn’t picture a banana” here, preferring instead to tell us that he didn’t picture something else as if that was relevant).           

Quite.

You really don't get the point of analogy.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Stranger,

But he has produced it hasn't he - doesn't he always call his various assertions and declarations an "obvious truth" or some such (that, apparently, the rest of us fail to recognise)?

There you go then - in Alan's world just calling something an obvious truth is all the "sound logic" he thinks we need. Job done!

How is Alan's ''obvious truth'' any worse than Bertrand's '' Brute fact ''?

[Maeght]

The point I was making is that people who are blind to the reality of God's love and the power of the human soul may not realise their blindness until a moment of enlightenment.

I think the fact that you missed the point aptly illustrates the point I was making. 

it's not a reality it is a belief which not everyone shares. That doesn't make them blind.

[Stranger]

How is Alan's ''obvious truth'' any worse than Bertrand's '' Brute fact ''?

One is either an expression of the limitations of our current knowledge or a possibility to bottom out the hierarchy of explanation, while the other is an assertion in place of an argument.

Good grief, did you even stop to think about this for a single moment before you posted?

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

You really don't get the point of analogy.

Thats because it's a false analogy, so there isn't a point. A claim of flying unaided is a better analogy, for the reasons I gave you.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

How is Alan's ''obvious truth'' any worse than Bertrand's '' Brute fact ''?

No-one disputes the brute fact that there is a universe; rational thinkers dispute AB's various supposed "obvious truths" because they're self-negating idiocies. That's how.

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

Thats because it's a false analogy, so there isn't a point. A claim of flying unaided is a better analogy, for the reasons I gave you.

It's not false because I'm not using it to imply that what Alan states he can do, can be done which is the stretch you've put on it. That's why I added the note.

If you want to change it to flying, I don't mind but at the same   to make sense, then you are going to have to attach a ton weight to him, and it will prove nothing.

The point is that asking someone to do not think of something to show that they can control their thoughts is like attaching the ton weight in either flying or swimming.


Alan's claims fall not becausecof physical impractibility but because of logical incoherence.

Say in an extension of your approach, Alan goes out and turns his head left, and sees a bus careening towards him. He's not able not to think 'bus!!!!!' but he would say he is able to decide to get put the way and in what way. So the specific inability to choose is not indicative of a general ability.


Setting up tests for logically incoherent claims is logically incoherent.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

It's not false because I'm not using it to imply that what Alan states he can do, can be done which is the stretch you've put on it. That's why I added the note.

It’s false because analogies require different objects with the same or sufficiently similar properties such that inferences can reasonably be drawn. AB’s “I can consciously control my thoughts” isn’t the same or sufficiently similar to “I can swim” for obvious reasons, whereas “I can fly unaided” would be.   

Here’s Wiki making the same point:

“The process of analogical inference involves noting the shared properties of two or more things, and from this basis inferring that they also share some further property.[1][2][3] The structure or form may be generalized like so:[1][2][3]

P and Q are similar in respect to properties a, b, and c.
P has been observed to have further property x.
Therefore, Q probably has property x also.

The argument does not assert that the two things are identical, only that they are similar. The argument may provide us with good evidence for the conclusion, but the conclusion does not follow as a matter of logical necessity.[1][2][3] Determining the strength of the argument requires that we take into consideration more than just the form: the content must also come under scrutiny.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy

If you want to change it to flying, I don't mind but at the same   to make sense, then you are going to have to attach a ton weight to him, and it will prove nothing.

No I’m not. Just flying unaided is sufficient for the analogy to work (ie two different claims with the same or sufficiently similar properties of collapsing under rational scrutiny and having no evidence to support them). Adding the ton weight breaks the analogy though because it would create two dissimilar claims for reasonable inference purposes.   

The point is that asking someone to do not think of something to show that they can control their thoughts is like attaching the ton weight in either flying or swimming.

No it isn’t – see above. If AB wants to claim to be able to “consciously control” his thoughts, then it should be a cinch for him to consciously control his thoughts such that he chooses not to picture in his mind’s eye the next object that’s written on the screen in front of him. He can’t do that though – hence we have an example of AB not being able to consciously control his thoughts at all.     

This should give him pause, even though (predictably) it doesn’t..

Alan's claims fall not becausecof physical impractibility but because of logical incoherence.

Yes, AB’s claims are incoherent. Even if we infer what he’s trying to say though, they also fails because he cannot do the things he think he can do (however incoherently expressed).

Say in an extension of your approach, Alan goes out and turns his head left, and sees a bus careening towards him. He's not able not to think 'bus!!!!!' but he would say he is able to decide to get put the way and in what way. So the specific inability to choose is not indicative of a general ability.

And similarly if he claimed to be able to fly unaided, jumped out of a window and wound up in hospital that wouldn’t necessarily mean that he wouldn’t flutter gracefully to the ground the next time he tried it. Your critique here is a straw man though – inviting him to “consciously control” his thoughts such that he didn’t picture an elephant and a banana wasn’t intended to disprove his general claim of conscious control (other reasoning that he just ignores does that) – rather it was just intended to demonstrate to him that he can’t do the thing he claims to be able to do.       

Setting up tests for logically incoherent claims is logically incoherent.

No it isn’t – that’s often how thought experiments work: “Your claim is incoherent. Nonetheless, if we extract from it your general thesis we can still falsify what it would imply if it was coherently expressed”. If you subject “I can control my thoughts” to rational analysis it’s incoherent. It’s also though a sentence that scans as well as “I can fly unaided” scans, so can be tested at that level too. 

The claim "god" for example is equally incoherent, but atheists here readily discuss the implications of "god" existing rather than just slam the door on theists with "but that's incoherent so there's nothing to talk about". It's a sort of convenient fiction - "let's both pretend that your claim about that isn't incoherent so we have something to discuss".           

[Bramble]

If you subject “I can control my thoughts” to rational analysis it’s incoherent.         

CBT is an evidence-based talking therapy recommended by NICE and available on the NHS. It works by identifying and challenging unhelpful thought patterns, such as ‘I’m useless’ or ‘Everybody hates me.’ Let’s say someone undergoes a course of treatment and manages to overcome their negative thought habit. Is this an example of them controlling their thoughts?

[Alan Burns]

If you subject “I can control my thoughts” to rational analysis it’s incoherent.

I have to ask the obvious question:
What is controlling the rational analysis if it is not your conscious mind?