Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

Not really,Vlad.

You said "Eliminationism means making the actual thing in question redundant, often by referring to it as an illusion.", and I'd say that applies to Alan's illusory notions about souls interacting with brains, about which he can say nothing meaningful -  therefore, we can just eliminate this idea as being theo-bollocks of the first order.

If you accept a material explanation for all aspects of our conscious awareness, then you have to accept that any notion of freedom to guide your own thoughts must be an illusion.
To believe in your own ability to consciously guide your thoughts, then you will have to accept that there must be a non material explanation.
You are free to label this as "theo-bollocks" if you so wish, but in doing so you would have to consciously consider whether you invoked your conscious freedom to do so.  Then you would have to consider if you had the freedom to consciously consider .... 
What I am illustrating is that your power to consciously consider is not an automated reaction beyond your conscious control.  Your conscious freedom to control your thoughts is a reality - not an illusion.

[BeRational]

If you accept a material explanation for all aspects of our conscious awareness, then you have to accept that any notion of freedom to guide your own thoughts must be an illusion.
To believe in your own ability to consciously guide your thoughts, then you will have to accept that there must be a non material explanation.
You are free to label this as "theo-bollocks" if you so wish, but in doing so you would have to consciously consider whether you invoked your conscious freedom to do so.  Then you would have to consider if you had the freedom to consciously consider .... 
What I am illustrating is that your power to consciously consider is not an automated reaction beyond your conscious control.  Your conscious freedom to control your thoughts is a reality - not an illusion.

You don't have freedom. It is an illusion. Just ignore it, it 'feels' like we have freedom to decide stuff, so just go with it.

[Gordon]

If you accept a material explanation for all aspects of our conscious awareness, then you have to accept that any notion of freedom to guide your own thoughts must be an illusion.

Yep - because I'm aware that there is stuff going on in my head even if I'm consciously unaware of it: for example, I know I dream and I know I have food phobias that I cannot consciously overcome.

To believe in your own ability to consciously guide your thoughts, then you will have to accept that there must be a non material explanation.

Which I don't accept, in the absence of any good grounds to take the notion seriously.

You are free to label this as "theo-bollocks" if you so wish, but in doing so you would have to consciously consider whether you invoked your conscious freedom to do so.  Then you would have to consider if you had the freedom to consciously consider .... 

I just thought about it, Alan, in the context of what the material stuff in my skull does. Nobody disputes that people can think about specific things.

What I am illustrating is that your power to consciously consider is not an automated reaction beyond your conscious control.  Your conscious freedom to control your thoughts is a reality - not an illusion.

The illusion, Alan, which is yours and not mine, is that I need your 'wee man at the controls' to tell me what to think in the first place: I don't, and since your justification for you asserting this is that you need to find a gap for your 'God' to inhabit, then my conclusion is that what you expound really is theo-bollocks.

[Sebastian Toe]

What I am illustrating is that your power to consciously consider is not an automated reaction beyond your conscious control.  Your conscious freedom to control your thoughts is a reality - not an illusion.

Then tell that to someone who has been hypnotised.
That hypnotised person can operate quite normally, think, play, work, calculate, consider, love, eat....until a trigger word or action or phrase is actioned. (And remember, the hypnotist does not need to be present and will not know when or if the trigger is actioned, in fact he could even be dead!)

Then, even if your concious real time soul has been told what the trigger is and that the trigger will make you cluck like a chicken.
You will not be able to consciously control that clucking away.
Your soul fantasy is well and truly clucked!

[Alan Burns]

You don't have freedom. It is an illusion. Just ignore it, it 'feels' like we have freedom to decide stuff, so just go with it.

My ability to consciously choose to ignore it and just "go with it" requires the conscious freedom I am supposed to pass off as an illusion.
My ability to try to pass it off as an illusion surely indicates that it is no illusion.

[Alan Burns]

Then tell that to someone who has been hypnotised.
That hypnotised person can operate quite normally, think, play, work, calculate, consider, love, eat....until a trigger word or action or phrase is actioned. (And remember, the hypnotist does not need to be present and will not know when or if the trigger is actioned, in fact he could even be dead!)

Then, even if your concious real time soul has been told what the trigger is and that the trigger will make you cluck like a chicken.
You will not be able to consciously control that clucking away.
Your soul fantasy is well and truly clucked!

What the hypnotist does, using his consciously driven expertise, is to program the material brain to override the control of the person's own conscious self.

[Sebastian Toe]

What the hypnotist does, using his consciously driven expertise, is to program the material brain to override the control of the person's own conscious self.

But if "you" are in control, real-time quantum tunneling control, how could that possibly happen?
Bearing in mind that the soul apparently controls the physical brain according to you.
Cluck, cluck.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

If you accept a material explanation for all aspects of our conscious awareness, then you have to accept that any notion of freedom to guide your own thoughts must be an illusion.

Yes! Finally! Halle-flippin’-llujah!

Now you’ve finally got it just stop there and we’ll be golden.

To believe in your own ability to consciously guide your thoughts, then you will have to accept that there must be a non material explanation.

Oh no... you were doing soo well for a minute there too.

Er, and a non-rational "explanation" too (because any such “conscious control" would require some thinking of its own and so on forever etc) and in any case you don’t understand reality by making it fit what you want to “believe”.
 

You are free to label this as "theo-bollocks" if you so wish, but in doing so you would have to consciously consider whether you invoked your conscious freedom to do so.  Then you would have to consider if you had the freedom to consciously consider ....   

No, just “bollocks" will do here and for good reason given the same mistake in thinking you’ve just made again.

What I am illustrating is that your power to consciously consider is not an automated reaction beyond your conscious control.  Your conscious freedom to control your thoughts is a reality - not an illusion.

You’re not illustrating anything – you’re just declaring it to be so and ignoring all the logical problems your declaration gives you.

By the way, as you just ignored the explanation I gave you do you now understand why justifying god with his guiding hat on with god with his designer hat on is bog-standard circular reasoning?     

[torridon]

If you accept a material explanation for all aspects of our conscious awareness, then you have to accept that any notion of freedom to guide your own thoughts must be an illusion.
To believe in your own ability to consciously guide your thoughts, then you will have to accept that there must be a non material explanation.
You are free to label this as "theo-bollocks" if you so wish, but in doing so you would have to consciously consider whether you invoked your conscious freedom to do so.  Then you would have to consider if you had the freedom to consciously consider .... 
What I am illustrating is that your power to consciously consider is not an automated reaction beyond your conscious control.  Your conscious freedom to control your thoughts is a reality - not an illusion.

It is an illusion in the sense that all experience is fabrication of mind.  If you touch the table in front of you, you aren't actually touching it, in reality this is impossible, however, our minds create the sensation of touch as a subjective interpretation of sensory data collected in your fingertips.  If you see a lemon as yellow, well the lemon itself is not actually yellow, again, it is our minds interpretating wavelengths of light that lemons reflect as yellow experience.  So it is with conscious thoughts, these are not things we consciously elicit, procure or manipulate, they are things we experience, they are constructions of our subconscious mind.  The idea that we could consciously choose which thoughts to have or not have makes no sense.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You don't have freedom. It is an illusion. Just ignore it, it 'feels' like we have freedom to decide stuff, so just go with it.

I want to see you then make the link between the movement of molecules and moral decisions, say.

Doesn't have to be a massive essay...a page of A4 would do.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It is an illusion in the sense that all experience is fabrication of mind.  If you touch the table in front of you, you aren't actually touching it, in reality this is impossible, however, our minds create the sensation of touch as a subjective interpretation of sensory data collected in your fingertips.  If you see a lemon as yellow, well the lemon itself is not actually yellow, again, it is our minds interpretating wavelengths of light that lemons reflect as yellow experience.  So it is with conscious thoughts, these are not things we consciously elicit, procure or manipulate, they are things we experience, they are constructions of our subconscious mind.  The idea that we could consciously choose which thoughts to have or not have makes no sense.

The word and concept of touch came long before the understanding of how particles interact. In other words we know what we mean when we talk about touch with the scientific explanation a mere interesting curiosity.

I'm sorry if that relegates science to a secondary and how that is hurtful to a believer of scientism and intellectual imperialism.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I want to see you then make the link between the movement of molecules and moral decisions, say.

Doesn't have to be a massive essay...a page of A4 would do.

Shifting the burden of proof seems to be your favourite fallacy these days. Do you not think that you should set out first the exact workings of your "it's magic innit" for the rest of us to examine?

You may need more than one page of A4 to do it though...

[Sebastian Toe]

The word and concept of touch came long before the understanding of how particles interact. In other words we know what we mean when we talk about touch with the scientific explanation a mere interesting curiosity.

I guess that means that when we talk about the conscious self/conciousness we all know what we mean and any scientific or philosophical explanation is a also mere interesting curiosity?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

The word and concept of touch came long before the understanding of how particles interact. In other words we know what we mean when we talk about touch with the scientific explanation a mere interesting curiosity.

It's a lot more than "a mere interesting curiosity" – it's the explanation for what's actually happening. Unwittingly though you've just argued for the position you're trying to argue against – we "know what we mean" by lots of things, and those meanings work well enough at a workaday, colloquial level. That's not to say for one minute that that "what we mean" and what's actually happening instead are the same thing.        

I'm sorry if that relegates science to a secondary...

It doesn't.

...and how that is hurtful to...

Ignorant drivel isn't "hurtful" - it's just ignorant drivel.

... a believer of scientism...

The only believer here in scientism is you.

...and intellectual imperialism.

Gibberish.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I guess that means that when we talk about the conscious self/conciousness we all know what we mean and any scientific or philosophical explanation is a also mere interesting curiosity?

If there was a concept of self and consciousness in philosophy before and without scientific explanation then yes.

I am not antiscientific here just antiscientism since scientism would declare any non scientific explanation as wrong or woefully incomplete and I am not declaring the science ''wrong''.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

It's a lot more than "a mere interesting curiosity" – it's the explanation for what's actually happening. Unwittingly though you've just argued for the position you're trying to argue against – we "know what we mean" by lots of things, and those meanings work well enough at a workaday, colloquial level. That's not to say for one minute that that "what we mean" and what's actually happening instead are the same thing.       

It doesn't.

Ignorant drivel isn't "hurtful" - it's just ignorant drivel.

The only believer here in scientism is you.

Gibberish.

Scientismic nonsense. Word piracy and intellectual totalitarianism on your part Hillside.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Scientismic nonsense. Word piracy and intellectual totalitarianism on your part Hillside.

Your random word generator seems to be working overtime today. If you do have a coherent thought to express though, then have a nice cup of tea and a garibaldi and then try to express it in comprehensible terms.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Shifting the burden of proof seems to be your favourite fallacy these days. Do you not think that you should set out first the exact workings of your "it's magic innit" for the rest of us to examine?

You may need more than one page of A4 to do it though...

Your intellectual diarrhoeal drippings aside, Hillside let's have an A4 summary from you as well...

Snap to it Laddy.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Your intellectual diarrhoeal drippings aside, Hillside let's have an A4 summary from you as well...

Snap to it Laddy.

"Shifting of the Burden of Proof

Description: Making a claim that needs justification, then demanding that the opponent justifies the opposite of the claim..."

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Shifting-of-the-Burden-of-Proof

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

"Shifting of the Burden of Proof

Description: Making a claim that needs justification, then demanding that the opponent justifies the opposite of the claim..."

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Shifting-of-the-Burden-of-Proof

Proof of what exactly?

My request is a rhetorical device.I know full well neither he nor you have traversed the explanatory gap for consciousness

[Sebastian Toe]

Proof of what exactly?

My request is a rhetorical device.I know full well neither he nor you have traversed the explanatory gap for consciousness

Have you?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Proof of what exactly?

Magic.

My request is a rhetorical device.

No it isn't - it's a failure in reasoning.

I know full well neither he nor you have traversed the explanatory gap for consciousness

No-one here other than some of the theists has claimed to have done that. You for example seem to think that "it's magic innit" does "traverse the explanatory gap" so the burden remains entirely with you to demonstrate that claim no matter how many times you try to shift the burden of proof.

As for whether a material or a non-material explanation is more likely, I'm with Mr Occam: I can at least demonstrate that there is a material, whereas you on the other hand have all your work ahead of you still not to have to just assume a "non-material" in which your explanation (should you ever offer one) could in principle at least reside.       

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Have you?

No. No one has.
I'm at liberty though not to invoke scientism.

[Sebastian Toe]

No. No one has.
I'm at liberty though not to invoke scientism.

As are others, not to invoke magic.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

No. No one has.

But some of us a least have fewer assumptions to make than others about what the explanation is more likely to be.

I'm at liberty though not to invoke scientism.

Actually you're the only person here who does "invoke" scientism. Here for example: "My position is that we can use the word universe to describe that which could be observed and studied by science".

Or have you now changed your mind about that?