Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

And what evaluates?
What perceives sound reasoning?
What searches out the available evidence?
What relates current thoughts to past experience?

Same as all the other times you asked similarly dimwitted, inane, and leading questions. You have not provided any argument whatsoever that any of this requires your impossible notion of 'free will' nor your similarly impossible claim that we "consciously control our own thought process'.

In short, this is just more dimwitted, utterly mindless repetition of Points Refuted a Thousand Times (PRATTs) before.

Why do you persist in making such an utter fool of yourself? Why not learn some logic and actually try a proper argument for once in your life?

[torridon]

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

That's just pejorative.  I am quite happy that I have a mind, or even, am a mind, and also that I have thoughts, or even, I am my thoughts.  But the fact that I do not choose which thoughts to have or not have does not equate to me being 'mindless'.  Where 'I' am to be found, is in the midst of the flow of my thoughts.

[Alan Burns]

Same as all the other times you asked similarly dimwitted, inane, and leading questions. You have not provided any argument whatsoever that any of this requires your impossible notion of 'free will' nor your similarly impossible claim that we "consciously control our own thought process'.

In short, this is just more dimwitted, utterly mindless repetition of Points Refuted a Thousand Times (PRATTs) before.

Why do you persist in making such an utter fool of yourself? Why not learn some logic and actually try a proper argument for once in your life?

The reason I keep asking is that you have never given any feasible explanation for:

How can you evaluate anything without conscious control of your thought processes?
How can you perceive and apply sound reasoning without conscious control of your thought processes?
How can you discern and make use of available evidence without conscious control of your thought processes?
How can you relate current situations with past experiences without conscious control of your thought processes?

The fact that we are able to do all these things is evidence for the conscious control which you claim to be a logical impossibility

[Stranger]

And the endless repetition of mindless, inane drivel just goes on and on,

The reason I keep asking is that you have never given any feasible explanation for:

It wouldn't matter if this was true (which it isn't). The lack of an alternative does not make your impossible fantasy any more credible. This is logic 101. You need to make the case for your own proposition. "What's your alternative?" is not an argument for your proposal. It's infantile whining.

Conscious control of our own thought processes is impossible because of the infinite regress it involves. If you had a functioning rational mind, that should be the end of the matter. Even a god-magic soul cannot get you out of such a problem unless you think your god can do the literally self-contradictory and (for example) draw a square circle on my desk.

How can you evaluate anything without conscious control of your thought processes?
How can you perceive and apply sound reasoning without conscious control of your thought processes?
How can you discern and make use of available evidence without conscious control of your thought processes?
How can you relate current situations with past experiences without conscious control of your thought processes?

I could, yet again, explain to you how none of these are in the least bit incompatible with a deterministic mind, but I'm not going to because:

• Past experience suggests that you'll just ignore it again.
• It wouldn't matter if they were all a total mystery. It still wouldn't support your impossible fantasy 'answer'.

The fact that we are able to do all these things is evidence for the conscious control which you claim to be a logical impossibility

Please stop lying. To be evidence, you need something that actually indicates the truth of what you are proposing. This is just an infantile, idiotic, utterly baseless assertion.

[Alan Burns]

Conscious control of our own thought processes is impossible because of the infinite regress it involves.

There is no need for an infinite regress.  Can you not comprehend that the controller is you?  You do not need another controller.

Do you fear the implications of having a God given soul which is not shackled to the time related, endless chains of "cause and effect" reactions in a material universe?

Do you not realise that you have the power to consciously interact with this world rather than just react?

[Outrider]

Do you fear the implications of having a God given soul which is not shackled to the time related, endless chains of "cause and effect" reactions in a material universe?

No, we just don't see any evidence for it. I don't fear being gored by a unicorn for much the same reason.

Do you not realise that you have the power to consciously interact with this world rather than just react?

You say those like they're different things. Conscious interaction is just one class of reaction to stimuli.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

There is no need for an infinite regress.

Yes there is. If you want to insert the idea of a “controller” you call a “soul” to do the decision making for “us”, then its thinking would (by your “reasoning”) require another controller and so on forever. Your way out of that (“it’s magic innit”) is no answer at all.

Can you not comprehend that the controller is you?  You do not need another controller.

Make your mind up. I thought you asserted into existence precisely “another controller” that you call a “soul”. Which is it?

Do you fear the implications of having a God given soul which is not shackled to the time related, endless chains of "cause and effect" reactions in a material universe?

Is this your latest tactic – just ignore or lie about everything that’s explained to you, and then accuse the people who make the arguments you can’t or won’t address as being scared of your logically impossible (and frankly bizarre) superstitions?

What do you hope to achieve by this behaviour?

Do you not realise that you have the power to consciously interact with this world rather than just react?

Do you not realise that interacting need not require mindless, infantile, logically impossible and fundamentally dishonest claims of magic to happen nonetheless?

Anyway, as you seem to think that “obvious” is all the argument you need to justify your beliefs and that any arguments that falsify them must therefore be “flawed” without examination here yet gain is the question you keep running away 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?

[Stranger]

There is no need for an infinite regress.  Can you not comprehend that the controller is you?  You do not need another controller.

Oh, for fuck's sake, are you incapable of following even the simplest argument!? The infinite regress has nothing to do with a controller per se. It arises simply from the claim that we can consciously control our own thought processes.

Exercising conscious control over something necessarily involves a conscious thought process, so you'd then have to consciously control that thought process too, so that would involve another concious thought process, and so on, ad infinitum.

It doesn't matter what 'the controller' is, the regress remains.

Do you fear the implications of having a God given soul which is not shackled to the time related, endless chains of "cause and effect" reactions in a material universe?

Not in the least. However, your utterly pathetic and totally illogical attempts to convince us that it is actually the case, suggest the you are terrified of it not being true to the point that you have given up on reasoning entirely.

Do you not realise that you have the power to consciously interact with this world rather than just react?

No.

[Alan Burns]

Make your mind up. I thought you asserted into existence precisely “another controller” that you call a “soul”. Which is it?

You are your soul

[Alan Burns]

However, your utterly pathetic and totally illogical attempts to convince us that it is actually the case, suggest the you are terrified of it not being true to the point that you have given up on reasoning entirely.

My reassurance that I do have conscious control of my life comes through my ability to pray.

You will never fully comprehend this if you do not have the ability or the inclination to open the door and let God into your life.

[Alan Burns]

You say those like they're different things. Conscious interaction is just one class of reaction to stimuli.

You can't have it both ways.
We are either entirely shackled to the endless chains of cause and effect as part of the continuum in a material universe, or we have the consciously driven ability to interact, to change, to guide, to manipulate, to choose our own destiny.

[Stranger]

My reassurance that I do have conscious control of my life comes through my ability to pray.

You will never fully comprehend this if you do not have the ability or the inclination to open the door and let God into your life.

So, once again you've had your illogical and nonsensical attempts to argue for your propositions totally taken apart and all you do is ignore it and preach your superstitions at us.

Do you really think what you're doing here is going to convince anybody who has the slightest grasp of logic and critical thinking, rather than make them run a mile from the idea of being anything like you?

[Outrider]

You can't have it both ways.

I'm not trying to, that's the whole point - conscious reaction to something is just one type of response to a stimulus, distinguished from others by the sensory experience that goes along with it.

We are either entirely shackled to the endless chains of cause and effect as part of the continuum in a material universe, or we have the consciously driven ability to interact, to change, to guide, to manipulate, to choose our own destiny.

Yes. However, being consciously aware of something doesn't free us from determinism unless you can show that consciousness is somehow different, qualitatively, from other neurological responses. So far I've not seen that you've done that - you've attempted to suggest the need for some external 'controller' for consciousness, but neither demonstrated something that shows how it interacts with our thought process, nor shown where there is a gap in our current understanding of neurological effects where it could fit, nor shown that it's a logical necessity (indeed, you've failed to acknowledge the implications of suggesting that it's a requirement at all).

You can posit 'souls' as some sort of controller for consciousness as much as you'd like, but you're constrained by three things: you cannot show that it's a logical necessity to explain the phenomena we observe; you cannot explain how it would be free from the fact that 'free will' as a concept is logically oxymoronic; and, you cannot show how any sort of 'will' would override the nature of block time to be able to 'change' something that's already in place in a different time.

O.

[Alan Burns]

So, once again you've had your illogical and nonsensical attempts to argue for your propositions totally taken apart and all you do is ignore it and preach your superstitions at us.

How do you reconcile these personal accusations within the scenario where I have no free will or power to control my own thoughts?

Do you really think what you're doing here is going to convince anybody who has the slightest grasp of logic and critical thinking, rather than make them run a mile from the idea of being anything like you?

I will continue to use my God given power of free will to give witness to the truth of our own spiritual nature. A nature which may well be considered to be a logical impossibility - which is why it complies with the spiritual nature of the human soul as depicted in the divine revelations of the Bible. 

[Outrider]

How do you reconcile these personal accusations within the scenario where I have no free will or power to control my own thoughts?

The feedback you're receiving is just one of the stimuli that is going into enforcing changes in the ongoing biological algorithm that is your brain, processing all this while you watch and putting out your resulting output.

I will continue to use my God given power of free will to give witness to the truth of our own spiritual nature.

Saying it loud and saying it proud does not in any way validate the concept that you're espousing. You know that, right? Repetition is not a reliable argument.

A nature which may well be considered to be a logical impossibility - which is why it complies with the spiritual nature of the human soul as depicted in the divine revelations of the Bible.

And here we see the inherent disingenuous of (some) religious argument - "if it was logical I'd be right, but if it's illogical then it must be both right and a miracle". When you can cite 'magic' to override logic, evidence and reality you have given up on attempting to reason at all.

O.

[Alan Burns]

However, being consciously aware of something doesn't free us from determinism unless you can show that consciousness is somehow different, qualitatively, from other neurological responses.

In this you are reducing your conscious self to be just a spectator of neurological responses to stimuli over which you have no conscious control.
Every thought you make is just an unavoidable response to past stimuli.
The concept of conscious control of your thoughts is impossible.
You would not even have the ability to consciously verify the thought processes going on in your mind.

This is not the reality I exist in.
Could I make such a statement without the ability to consciously control my own thoughts?

[Alan Burns]

Saying it loud and saying it proud does not in any way validate the concept that you're espousing. You know that, right? Repetition is not a reliable argument.

My ability to constantly repeat my views on reality is another demonstration of my conscious freedom to do so.

[Stranger]

How do you reconcile these personal accusations within the scenario where I have no free will or power to control my own thoughts?

There is nothing at all about that that would preclude you learning from your mistakes.

I will continue to use my God given power of free will to give witness to the truth of our own spiritual nature. A nature which may well be considered to be a logical impossibility - which is why it complies with the spiritual nature of the human soul as depicted in the divine revelations of the Bible.

The bible reveals nothing. It's an incoherent mess. Try reading it to see what it actually says, rather than to confirm what your already 'know'.

As for the logical impossibilities. There are two possibilities:

• You think your god can literally do the logically (not just physically) impossible, like draw a square circle. If you think this, then attempting to persuade people with supposed logical arguments will always fail because you cannot provide logic to support the illogical. Additionally, any claims of evidence are automatically vacuous as well, because you can't have evidence for the logically impossible either. Blind, unthinking, unreasoning faith is the only option. Such faith is, by definition, irrational.
  
  
• You don't think your god can do the self-contradictory. In this case, it is at least possible that you could have logic or evidence. The fact that all your claims of evidence are absurd and all your attempts at logic are riddled with fallacies, suggests that you need to work a lot harder on your reasoning skills.

[Alan Burns]

When you can cite 'magic' to override logic, evidence and reality you have given up on attempting to reason at all.

I am citing the reality of or own consciously driven abilities which override the flawed logic based on our very limited human knowledge.

[Stranger]

My ability to constantly repeat my views on reality is another demonstration of my conscious freedom to do so.

No, it isn't. In fact, it's pretty much the sort of behaviour one would expect from a mindless chatbot.

[Stranger]

I am citing the reality of or own consciously driven abilities which override the flawed logic based on our very limited human knowledge.

You have not demonstrated, successfully argued for, nor provided a shred of evidence for, this supposed ability.   

[Stranger]

In this you are reducing your conscious self to be just a spectator of neurological responses to stimuli over which you have no conscious control.
Every thought you make is just an unavoidable response to past stimuli.

Argumentum ad consequentiam fallacy (that's a foolish logical blunder).

The concept of conscious control of your thoughts is impossible.

It is anyway - even with a god-magic soul.

You would not even have the ability to consciously verify the thought processes going on in your mind.

Reasoning-free assertion.

This is not the reality I exist in.

Reasoning-free assertion.

Could I make such a statement without the ability to consciously control my own thoughts?

Where is any reasoning that you couldn't?

[Alan Burns]

Such faith is, by definition, irrational.

Is it irrational to realise that we have a will of our own which is not pre determined by past events, which enables me to guide my own thoughts and reach verifiable conclusions, which enables me to deduce that your logical deduction that we have no conscious control of our thoughts must be inherently flawed?

[Stranger]

Such faith is, by definition, irrational.

Is it irrational to realise that we have a will of our own which is not pre determined by past events, which enables me to guide my own thoughts and reach verifiable conclusions, which enables me to deduce that your logical deduction that we have no conscious control of our thoughts must me inherently flawed?

Firstly, you have taken my comment out of its context. Are you saying that you do think your god can do the logically impossible, e.g. draw a square circle, or not?

Secondly, you haven't 'realised' anything, you have just made unsupported claims based on nothing but blind faith (apparently). You have also never posted anything remotely like a deduction - unless you count the kindergarten level "I'm right, so you must be wrong."

[Outrider]

In this you are reducing your conscious self to be just a spectator of neurological responses to stimuli over which you have no conscious control.

Quite possibly, yes - it may be that it's a slightly more dynamic feedback loop than that, but it's still a post-hoc awareness of activity that's going to happen regardless of our awareness of it.

Every thought you make is just an unavoidable response to past stimuli.

That's about it, yes.

The concept of conscious control of your thoughts is impossible.

Not impossible, it's just not something different - our conscious thoughts are just like our subconscious thoughts only we're more explicitly aware of them.

You would not even have the ability to consciously verify the thought processes going on in your mind.

You would, it just wouldn't necessarily change anything.

This is not the reality I exist in.

Whether it is or isn't isn't dependent upon how you feel about it.

Could I make such a statement without the ability to consciously control my own thoughts?

Of course. That it's an inevitable result of your history, and that it's outside of any illusion of control you have doesn't mean that it's correct - you're as capable of being subconsciously wrong as you are of being consciously wrong.

I am citing the reality of or own consciously driven abilities which override the flawed logic based on our very limited human knowledge.

No you weren't, you were saying that "...a logical impossibility - which is why it complies with the spiritual nature of the human soul as depicted in the divine revelations of the Bible." Your claim was that the illogic of it somehow demonstrated its validity in a 'heads I win, tails you lose' attempt to claim both sides. If it's illogical for us, it's illogical for god and reality too. You can claim that our precepts are mistaken, fine, you can assert that you're going to maintain your faith despite the apparent illogic of it. But, to claim that if it's logically untenable that somehow proves your case as well is just to be not engaging in the debate in good faith.

O.