Searching for GOD...

[Gordon]

But I am free to choose how, when and where to process with whatever enters my conscious awareness.
I am free to think!

Then you are at last conceding that you are not 'free' to control all aspects of your thought processes - you are as much a hostage to sub-conscious antecedents as the rest of us.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Stranger,

Can't help feeling you're being too generous here.

Yes indeed – over generosity is indeed perhaps the most egregious of my many faults…   

After all, the mistake of thinking fingers touch keyboards can be explained by simple lack of the relevant information. It isn't an obvious impossibility.

Yes, for most of human history people believed they had unfettered agency over their decision-making because – on the basis of the information they had –  that was the only explanation in town. AB doesn’t have that excuse though – the relevant information has been given to him countless times but he just ignores it so as to preserve the narrative that’s "obvious" to him too. 

On the other hand, the idea that we can "consciously control our own thought processes" doesn't survive the first hint of rational analysis.

Any sort of 'concious control' would require a conscious thought process. To exercise conscious control over the process of thinking means that I'd need to apply it to the thought process that I was using to exercise conscious control over my thought processes. This leads immediately to a blindingly obvious infinite regress.

It's clearly totally impossible and even magic doesn't help unless you're going to claim that it can do the self-contradictory. Unless Alan thinks that his God could literally draw a square circle on my desk, even god-magic isn't going to help him.

Yes I know, and at some dimly aware level I suspect AB knows that too which why to protect his a priori faith beliefs he has to take refuge in magic thinking (“soul”) to get off that hook.

It goes something like this:

1. I have yet to be satisfied with the explanations for how aeroplanes can fly using jet engines.

2. Therefore aeroplanes can’t fly using jet engines.

3. Therefore aeroplanes are powered by flying carpets.

4. This is “obvious” so any evidence to the contrary must ipso facto be “flawed” and I have no need therefore to address it. 

5. Job done.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I saw the word "elephant" but I chose to picture a kangaroo instead. 

No you didn't. However briefly, an image of an elephant appeared in your mind's eye and you had no "control" to stop that happening. If that were not he case why would you have picked another animal to envisage rather than, say, a cheese sandwich?   

I will use my conscious power to control how I choose to reply to the rest of your post shortly
Watch this space.

Seems unlikely but go ahead - surprise me.

Once again:

Do you agree that for most people who use keyboards the “obvious reality” is that their fingers actually touch the keys and therefore that, without examining them, the arguments for why they’re not doing that would appear to be “flawed”?

That is, can you see that at one workaday, colloquial level a reality is that they are touching the keys but that at the same time at a deeper, more reason- and evidence-based level of reality a different and more robust explanation entirely is available?

Forget your faith claims for now – as a basic proposition can you see how an “obvious” and useful type of reality and a more robust (albeit counter-instinctive) reality can exist at the same time?


 

[Stranger]

I am free to think!

So why don't you?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Stranger,

Yes indeed – over generosity is indeed perhaps the most egregious of my many faults…   

Yes, for most of human history people believed they had unfettered agency over their decision-making because – on the basis of the information they had –  that was the only explanation in town. AB doesn’t have that excuse though – the relevant information has been given to him countless times but he just ignores it so as to preserve the narrative that’s "obvious" to him too. 

Yes I know, and at some dimly aware level I suspect AB knows that too which why to protect his a priori faith beliefs he has to take refuge in magic thinking (“soul”) to get off that hook.

It goes something like this:

1. I have yet to be satisfied with the explanations for how aeroplanes can fly using jet engines.

2. Therefore aeroplanes can’t fly using jet engines.

3. Therefore aeroplanes are powered by flying carpets.

4. This is “obvious” so any evidence to the contrary must ipso facto be “flawed” and I have no need therefore to address it. 

5. Job done.

What are you whittling on about?
Shit analogy and horse laugh fallacy.

[Stranger]

Shit analogy and horse laugh fallacy.

Bare assertion.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

What are you whittling on about?
Shit analogy and horse laugh fallacy.

The analogy mirrors AB's line of reasoning, and as before you're mistaking a reductio ad absurdum (legitimate) for an argument from ridicule (not legitimate).   

Did you have an actual argument to make though? 

[Alan Burns]

Then you are at last conceding that you are not 'free' to control all aspects of your thought processes - you are as much a hostage to sub-conscious antecedents as the rest of us.

I have never claimed that we have control over all aspects of our thought processes.
What we do have is sufficient control to direct our thoughts to reach verifiable conclusions.

[Alan Burns]

No you didn't. However briefly, an image of an elephant appeared in your mind's eye and you had no "control" to stop that happening. If that were not he case why would you have picked another animal to envisage rather than, say, a cheese sandwich?   

No.  The word elephant did not bring up a visual picture in my mind.
My first image was of a banana, but I consciously chose to override it with a kangaroo.  Does this demonstrate my conscious freedom?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

No.  The word elephant did not bring up a visual picture in my mind.
My first image was of a banana, but I consciously chose to override it with a kangaroo.  Does this demonstrate my conscious freedom?

So you saw the word "elephant", then "controlled" your thoughts to block the image of an elephant even fleetingly and chose to envisage a banana instead? I call BS.

Oh, and as you've just ducked it again:

Do you agree that for most people who use keyboards the “obvious reality” is that their fingers actually touch the keys and therefore that, without examining them, the arguments for why they’re not doing that would appear to be “flawed”?

That is, can you see that at one workaday, colloquial level a reality is that they are touching the keys but that at the same time at a deeper, more reason- and evidence-based level of reality a different and more robust explanation entirely is available?

Forget your faith claims for now – as a basic proposition can you see how an “obvious” and useful type of reality and a more robust (albeit counter-instinctive) reality can exist at the same time?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Tell you what, as it seems to be too difficult for you to answer as it is I’ll simplify it for you:

Can you see that at one level a reality people are “obviously” touching the keys in front of them and that at the same time at a deeper, more reason- and evidence-based level of reality a different and more robust explanation is available?

Forget your faith claims for now – as a basic proposition do you now see how an “obvious” and useful but wrong version of reality and a more robust (albeit counter-intuitive) version of reality can exist at the same time?

[Stranger]

What we do have is sufficient control to direct our thoughts to reach verifiable conclusions.

Why don't you use it?

[Alan Burns]

Once again:

Do you agree that for most people who use keyboards the “obvious reality” is that their fingers actually touch the keys and therefore that, without examining them, the arguments for why they’re not doing that would appear to be “flawed”?

That is, can you see that at one workaday, colloquial level a reality is that they are touching the keys but that at the same time at a deeper, more reason- and evidence-based level of reality a different and more robust explanation entirely is available?

Forget your faith claims for now – as a basic proposition can you see how an “obvious” and useful type of reality and a more robust (albeit counter-instinctive) reality can exist at the same time?

The fact that it is force fields which make contact rather than atomic particles is totally irrelevant.  Who cares how the finger makes contact - the simple truth is that it is the movement of the finger which causes the key to be depressed.  What is important is the cause and the result.

These are the important questions to consider:

What causes (drives) our thought patterns? 
Does our conscious awareness have any input to the cause?
What verifies the conclusions we come to?

[Stranger]

These are the important questions to consider:

Not really.

What causes (drives) our thought patterns?

Nature, nurture, experiences, and circumstances.

Does our conscious awareness have any input to the cause?

It's part of our past experience and may or may not be significant in the the process of thought itself.

What verifies the conclusions we come to?

For rational people, evaluation against the principles of sound reasoning and available evidence. In your case (apparently) nothing much at all except checking against your irrational blind faith dogmas.

[Gordon]

I have never claimed that we have control over all aspects of our thought processes.
What we do have is sufficient control to direct our thoughts to reach verifiable conclusions.

Then you must concede that you don't have sufficient control to claim the level of control that you assert.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The fact that it is force fields which make contact rather than atomic particles is totally irrelevant.

No no no no no – you’ve lost the plot again here. Try – really try – just to focus on the basic question you’re actually being asked: can you see now that sometimes “obvious” truths can turn out not to be not robust and that different, reason- and evidence-based truths can be more robust even though they may be less intuitively obvious?

That’s all you’re being asked to consider for now. The answer is either yes or no.

Which is it?

Who cares how the finger makes contact - the simple truth is that it is the movement of the finger which causes the key to be depressed.  What is important is the cause and the result.

Actually how a phenomenon happens is the whole point. Computer keys get depressed but the colloquial explanation for how that happens is wrong; decision-making happens, but the colloquial explanation for how that happens is wrong. The “how” here is everything.

Try to remember this.   

These are the important questions to consider:

What causes (drives) our thought patterns?
Does our conscious awareness have any input to the cause?
What verifies the conclusions we come to?

Not they’re not. Even if the current reason- and evidence-based answers to these questions were found to be incomplete or wrong, that would provide no more justification for your claim “soul” than (to quote Ben Goldacre) finding flaws in aeroplane design would justify the claim “flying carpets”.

So, yet again stop evading and just try to answer the simple question you’ve actually been asked: can you see now how sometimes intuitively obvious answers to how something happens can be less robust than counter-intuitive, non-obvious and different answers to the same questions – for example with fingers not touching the keys?   

Can you see that now – yes or no?

[Alan Burns]

Not really.

Nature, nurture, experiences, and circumstances.

It's part of our past experience and may or may not be significant in the the process of thought itself.

For rational people, evaluation against the principles of sound reasoning and available evidence. In your case (apparently) nothing much at all except checking against your irrational blind faith dogmas.

And what evaluates?
What perceives sound reasoning?
What searches out the available evidence?
What relates current thoughts to past experience?
How could it be anything but your conscious self?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

And what evaluates?
What perceives sound reasoning?
What searches out the available evidence?
What relates current thoughts to past experience?
How could it be anything but your conscious self?

You do, only “you” doesn’t require a logically impossible invisible little man at the controls as these processes are part of an integrated system.

Anyway, back to the question you keep running way from: can you see now how sometimes intuitively obvious answers to how things happen can be less robust than counter-intuitive, non-obvious and different but reason- and evidence-based answers to the same questions – for example with fingers not touching the keys?   

Yes or no? 

[Alan Burns]

So, yet again stop evading and just try to answer the simple question you’ve actually been asked: can you see now how sometimes intuitively obvious answers to how something happens can be less robust than counter-intuitive, non-obvious and different answers to the same questions – for example with fingers not touching the keys?   

You are trivialising the whole issue with this silly comparison.

The force field around the finger is still part of the finger, so fingers do touch the keys. 

How can this possibly compare with the ability of your conscious self to drive your own thought processes and reach verifiable conclusions?

[Alan Burns]

You do, only “you” doesn’t require a logically impossible invisible little man at the controls as these processes are part of an integrated system.

Remove the conscious controller and what are you left with? - A mindless robot with no thoughts of its own.

[Stranger]

You are trivialising the whole issue with this silly comparison.

The force field around the finger is still part of the finger, so fingers do touch the keys. 

How can this possibly compare with the ability of your conscious self to drive your own thought processes and reach verifiable conclusions?

Actually the only triviality here is in your absurd claim that is trivially easy to dismiss due to its inevitable infinite regress and hence impossibility.

[Stranger]

A mindless robot with no thoughts of its own.

Much like what appears to be generating your posts....

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You are trivialising the whole issue with this silly comparison.

Dear god but you you struggle. Consider the following analogy: “A good husband is as hard to find as a needle in a haystack”.

Would you say that it’s invalid because you cannot compare something a complex as a good husband with something as simple as a needle, or would you grasp that the common principle (ie, that both are hard to find) is what makes the analogy valid, not the features of its different objects?

Yet again then: can you see now how sometimes intuitively obvious answers to how things happen can be less robust than counter-intuitive, non-obvious and different but reason- and evidence-based answers to the same questions – for example with fingers not touching the keys?   

Yes or no?

The force field around the finger is still part of the finger, so fingers do touch the keys.

No they don’t but that’s irrelevant in any case. What’s relevant here is just whether can you see now how sometimes intuitively obvious answers to how things happen can be less robust than counter-intuitive, non-obvious and different but reason- and evidence-based answers to the same questions – for example with fingers not touching the keys?   

Either you can see that or you can’t. Which is it? 

How can this possibly compare with the ability of your conscious self to drive your own thought processes and reach verifiable conclusions?

In lots of ways but as it’s irrelevant we don’t need to go down that rabbit hole. It’s just the principle that matters here, not the objects attached to it. Yet again then: can you see now how sometimes intuitively obvious answers to how things happen can be less robust than counter-intuitive, non-obvious and different but reason- and evidence-based answers to the same questions – for example with fingers not touching the keys?   

Yes or no? 

[Stranger]

Remove the conscious controller and what are you left with? - A mindless robot with no thoughts of its own.

Slightly more seriously, there is no necessary connection between consciousness being in control (let alone of its own thought process) and having thoughts of one's own or being 'mindless'. These are just your own mindless (!) assertions.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Remove the conscious controller and what are you left with? - A mindless robot with no thoughts of its own.

If by "the conscious controller" you mean something like "the pre-frontal cortex integrated with various sub-systems to produce the seamless process we experience as thinking" then that could well be true.

Anyway: can you see now how sometimes intuitively obvious answers to how things happen can be less robust than counter-intuitive, non-obvious and different but reason- and evidence-based answers to the same questions – for example with fingers not touching the keys?   

Yes or no?