Searching for GOD...

[torridon]

Please explain how I manage to achieve wilful ignorance if I have no conscious control of my will?

Nobody has conscious control of their will. Can you decide to want something you don't want ?  Of course you can't.

[torridon]

You cannot compare the apparently blue sky with the process of conscious control needed to think things out and come to valid conclusions.
Your analysis of what makes the sky appear blue is evidence of your ability to consciously contemplate something in your conscious awareness and come up with a logically derived conclusion.

The blueness of the sky is not a 'logically derived conclusion'.  It is a simple percept, and one that we have no control over. The fundamental principles exposed by this simple observation apply to higher level cognitive functioning also. If we are thinkng through a complex problem to find a solution, we experience a flow of thoughts and these thoughts arise also from non-conscious origins that we have no direct conscious control over. We cannot choose which thoughts to have next, they come to us out of lower levels of mind, and they reflect our emotional state as well as our memories and our cognitive skills.  There is no sense in which we can control the fundamental workings of mind as if we were somehow independant of our thoughts. If I could control my thoughts in the way you seem to think we can, then I would only ever have brilliant thoughts, I'd never have useless ones. That's not the reality we live in, though.

[Sriram]

That depends on what you mean by 'Inner Consciousness'. it's not a term used in cognitive science, so probably doesn't map well.

Does the inner consciousness or the subconscious mind that you refer to, have freedom to think freely?

[Sriram]

Nobody has conscious control of their will. Can you decide to want something you don't want ?  Of course you can't.

Of course!   We may initially reject a certain girl and then after some thought decide that she is a very nice person after all.  Many such after thoughts lead to marriage and a happy life.

[torridon]

Does the inner consciousness or the subconscious mind that you refer to, have freedom to think freely?

'Freedom' is a tricky concept that trips people up when used in the context of thought processes.  What would the subconscious thoughts be free of ?

[torridon]

Of course!   We may initially reject a certain girl and then after some thought decide that she is a very nice person after all.  Many such after thoughts lead to marriage and a happy life.

That is an example of your wants changing over time as we discover new information.

[Alan Burns]

If your aim here was to put people off your faith, you have spectacularly succeed.

My aim is to help people discover their true self - that they are not just an unintended consequence emerging from material reactions.

Before you can discover God you need to discover yourself.

[Maeght]

My aim is to help people discover their true self - that they are not just an unintended consequence emerging from material reactions.

Before you can discover God you need to discover yourself.

By just making repeated assertions? Don't think that helps much.

[Sebastian Toe]

My aim is to help people discover their true self - that they are not just an unintended consequence emerging from material reactions.

Spectacular failure then.
Maybe you need to change your arguements from illogical , magic-requiring ones to something which approximates to reality?

[Sriram]

'Freedom' is a tricky concept that trips people up when used in the context of thought processes.  What would the subconscious thoughts be free of ?

That is what I am asking you. Since the conscious mind is dependent on the sub/unconscious mind.....what is the unconscious mind dependent on? 

[Alan Burns]

Spectacular failure then.
Maybe you need to change your arguments from illogical , magic-requiring ones to something which approximates to reality?

It is spectacularly difficult to get through to people who do not acknowledge the reality of their freedom to choose their own destiny.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

[My aim is to help people discover their true self - that they are not just an unintended consequence emerging from material reactions.

And my aim is to help people discover that rainbows are put there so leprechauns have somewhere to leave their pots of gold.

If you want to claim to have knowledge that you’d like others to discover, then you need to trouble yourself with establishing first that you do in fact have such knowledge. So far at least your efforts at doing that have consisted only of false arguments, lies, unqualified assertions and wilful ignorance. That’s not a good start, and it indicates to others only that you know nothing that’s discoverable.

Why not trouble yourself with that problem before making claims to knowledge that you can’t justify?     

Before you can discover God you need to discover yourself.

Before you can "discover God" you need to establish that there’s a god to be discovered.

Why not start with that?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It is spectacularly difficult to get through to people who do not acknowledge the reality of their freedom to choose their own destiny.

It's even more spectacularly difficult to get through to you that that's not the reality at all - it's just your reality.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

That is what I am asking you. Since the conscious mind is dependent on the sub/unconscious mind.....what is the unconscious mind dependent on?

What makes you think that the "sub/unconscious mind" needs to be dependent on something other than itself? 

[Sebastian Toe]

It is spectacularly difficult to get through to people who do not acknowledge the reality of their freedom to choose their own destiny.

Well you must be doing something spectacularly wrong.

Let me guess, trying to persuade people that a magic requiring, totally illogical, non evidenced, indescribable "soul" is behind their "freedom".
That's it, that's your problem.

Get over that and you might start to persuade somebody of something.

Untill then, well nothing really apart from blind faith and fear that your "reality bubble" might burst I guess.

[Alan Burns]

Let me guess, trying to persuade people that a magic requiring, totally illogical, non evidenced, indescribable "soul" is behind their "freedom".
That's it, that's your problem.

My soul is what I am.
It is the only reality I know.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

My soul is what I am.

So you assert. So what though?

It is the only reality I know.

No it isn't. It's just the only reality you're prepared to consider, which is a different matter.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

So you assert. So what though?

No it isn't. It's just the only reality you're prepared to consider, which is a different matter.

Without the conscious freedom of my soul I would be unable to consider anything.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Without the conscious freedom of my soul I would be unable to consider anything.

Yes you would.

[Gordon]

Without the conscious freedom of my soul I would be unable to consider anything.

Personal incredulity must be the fallacy du jour.

Presumably, and playing along with the fantasy for a moment, this 'soul' thing is by-passing your ability to think and to reason.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Gordon,

Personal incredulity must be the fallacy du jour.

Presumably, and playing along with the fantasy for a moment, this 'soul' thing is by-passing your ability to think and to reason.

It’s Alan’s Catch-22. No matter how sound the arguments that show him to be wrong about everything, the fact that those arguments can be made at all must mean he’s right. The problem of one of those arguments also falsifying this Catch-22 idiocy he just ignores.

It’s desperate and dispiriting stuff, but he clings to it as a man clings to a concrete lifebelt nonetheless.       

[Alan Burns]

Personal incredulity must be the fallacy du jour.

Presumably, and playing along with the fantasy for a moment, this 'soul' thing is by-passing your ability to think and to reason.

According to the materialist view I do not have the freedom to think or to reason.

[Maeght]

It is spectacularly difficult to get through to people who do not acknowledge the reality of their freedom to choose their own destiny.

You haven't shown that it is a reality that we are free to do so, just asserted it.

[Maeght]

Without the conscious freedom of my soul I would be unable to consider anything.

Of course you wouldn't, the brain can process and come to a conclusion, based on previous experiences.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

According to the materialist view I do not have the freedom to think or to reason.

"According to the materialist view" yes you do inasmuch as, for example, no-one can stop you from holding your blind faith beliefs. Also "according to the materialist view" though there's no way for "you" to operate free of the constraints of logic and evidence.

It would help if you at least stoped lying about this.