Searching for GOD...

[torridon]

This simply demonstrates their freedom to think about it and come to consciously validated conclusions.
Without this freedom would we not all come to the same conclusion - or no conclusion?

So if you set a maths challenge to a bunch of kids, some will get the right answer, others will not. If all are equaly unconstrained why do they not all get the right answer ?

[Alan Burns]

So if you set a maths challenge to a bunch of kids, some will get the right answer, others will not. If all are equaly unconstrained why do they not all get the right answer ?

We are not automated machines.
We have the freedom to consciously guide our mental faculties to try to reach a correct, consciously validated answer.
We also have the conscious freedom to ignore the challenge if we so wish.

[ekim]

I can assure you that I have all the mental faculties to recognise and reject any form of indoctrination

Have you ever considered the source of indoctrination?
Is it not the result of human free will to deliberately impose their ideas on others?
How could any form of indoctrination be initiated if there is no conscious control of human thoughts?

The Apostles' Creed is a part of Christian Doctrine and is repeated often.  Many have claimed its content to be true as a result of this indoctrination.  Have you rejected it?

Those who deliberately impose their ideas do so because their will is dictated by the desire to exercise control over others. Their will is not free from desire and has a subconscious driver.

[torridon]

We are not automated machines.
We have the freedom to consciously guide our mental faculties to try to reach a correct, consciously validated answer.
We also have the conscious freedom to ignore the challenge if we so wish.

so we dont have the conscious freedom to select only correct thoughts, or only good thoughts. So you agree with me that we do not have the capacity to control or manipulate our thoughts after all. What happens, is that we experience thoughts, but we have no conscious control over which thoughts come to us.

[Sebastian Toe]

We are not automated machines.
We have the freedom to consciously guide our mental faculties to try to reach a correct, consciously validated answer.

What prevents everyone from achieving the correct answer?

[Enki]

Alan,
I really don't see the point of what you keep trying to say. I quite accept that the conscious element of our brain fulfils a function and the unconscious brain also fulfils a function. We might disagree as to what those functions may be but, according to the weight of evidence, the bottom line is that the brain itself is the instigator of all our thoughts and actions. Your idea that you need something else(i.e. a 'soul') to direct the brain is without evidence and simply leads to the problematic question of what directs the 'soul'.

It's a bit like C.S.Lewis's rather antiquated and non evidenced argument  that our rationality is something outside nature.

I just find your constant repetition of something(presumably outside of our brains) guiding our brains to be totally unevidenced, rather futile and extremely boring.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I can assure you that I have all the mental faculties to recognise and reject any form of indoctrination

“I can assure you” is an assertion, not an argument and in any case people who are indoctrinated typically don’t know they’ve been indoctrinated and you're no exception to that. That's the point.

The grounds for thinking it likely that you were indoctrinated (or some variety of that) are that while you can (presumably) find logical arguments to justify your other types of belief, you just abandon the attempt entirely for your religious beliefs in favour of disastrously wrong arguments, unqualified assertions (see above) and idiotically self-contradictory statements of your supposed truths. These are all red flags that indicate that you’ve been conned into believing the nonsense you do believe in – albeit apparently (though somewhat depressingly) sincerely.       

Have you ever considered the source of indoctrination?

In your case, presumably the religious figures and institutions who indoctrinated you. 

Is it not the result of human free will to deliberately impose their ideas on others?

Depends whether you mean “free will” in the useful, colloquial sense or in the logically impossible sense you would like it to be.

How could any form of indoctrination be initiated if there is no conscious control of human thoughts?

Easily – see above.

[Alan Burns]

Easily – see above.

All you have done is repeat the mantra that conscious control of our thoughts is a logical impossibility.
This is not a viable explanation for how any form of indoctrination can be initiated.
Indoctrination is a wilful act to try to impose specific ideas or thoughts on another person.
If you have no control over your own thoughts, how can you possibly try to impose control over other people's thoughts?

[torridon]

All you have done is repeat the mantra that conscious control of our thoughts is a logical impossibility.
This is not a viable explanation for how any form of indoctrination can be initiated.
Indoctrination is a wilful act to try to impose specific ideas or thoughts on another person.
If you have no control over your own thoughts, how can you possibly try to impose control over other people's thoughts?

People try to impose their will on others because they want to.  This does not require any incoherent magical explanation, it will happen anyway, people always do what they want to. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

All you have done is repeat the mantra that conscious control of our thoughts is a logical impossibility.

It’s not a mantra, it’s an argument.

The argument is that if for some reason you’ve decided that consciousness cannot be a single, integrated process of mind so something else (called a “soul”) must be involved, then that supposed soil must also have a thinking process of its own. In other words your speculation just relocates the process but don’t explain it, and your only way out of that (effectively “it’s magic innit”) is worthless.     
 

This is not a viable explanation for how any form of indoctrination can be initiated.

The logical impossibility of your conjecture doesn’t depend on having a different “viable explanation” for anything. It remains impossible regardless of the validity or otherwise of such other explanations as we have.

Your endless repetition of the non sequitur “you can’t explain X to my satisfaction, therefore the answer must be (logically impossible) Y” is fundamentally false reasoning.

Whether or not you find the working hypotheses for consciousness satisfactory, that tells you nothing at all about the validity of your speculation “soul”.     

Indoctrination is a wilful act to try to impose specific ideas or thoughts on another person.

That’s a pretty good description of organised religions, yes – especially those that invest heavily in getting to children before their critical faculties have developed.
   

If you have no control over your own thoughts, how can you possibly try to impose control over other people's thoughts?

People do what they want to do, and what people want to do does not and cannot require the logically impossible “control over your own thoughts”.

Repeating idiocy doesn’t make it less idiotic. You should know this by now.     

[Alan Burns]

AB,

It’s not a mantra, it’s an argument.

The argument is that if for some reason you’ve decided that consciousness cannot be a single, integrated process of mind so something else (called a “soul”) must be involved, then that supposed soil must also have a thinking process of its own. In other words your speculation just relocates the process but don’t explain it, and your only way out of that (effectively “it’s magic innit”) is worthless.     
 
The logical impossibility of your conjecture doesn’t depend on having a different “viable explanation” for anything. It remains impossible regardless of the validity or otherwise of such other explanations as we have.

Your endless repetition of the non sequitur “you can’t explain X to my satisfaction, therefore the answer must be (logically impossible) Y” is fundamentally false reasoning.

Whether or not you find the working hypotheses for consciousness satisfactory, that tells you nothing at all about the validity of your speculation “soul”.     

That’s a pretty good description of organised religions, yes – especially those that invest heavily in getting to children before their critical faculties have developed.
   
People do what they want to do, and what people want to do does not and cannot require the logically impossible “control over your own thoughts”.

Repeating idiocy doesn’t make it less idiotic. You should know this by now.   

You need to get to grips with the demonstrable reality that you do have conscious control of your own thoughts.
It is not "just the way it seems" or just an "experience" of control.  Your control is real - it is demonstrable.
It is the control you adequately demonstrate in your convoluted attempts to try to find reasons to support your belief that conscious control is a logical impossibility.

In consciously claiming and trying to justify that conscious control is logically impossible you are putting the cart before the horse.
You are using consciously thought out arguments to try to prove that you have no conscious control of your thoughts.
Can you not see why I have to keep pointing this out to you?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You need to get to grips with the demonstrable reality that you do have conscious control of your own thoughts.

You can’t “get to grips” with idiocy, and if you think it’s demonstrable nonetheless then why don’t you finally attempt at least actually to demonstrate it rather than just assert it to be demonstrable?
 

It is not "just the way it seems" or just an "experience" of control.  Your control is real - it is demonstrable.

Wrong again - see above.

It is the control you adequately demonstrate in your convoluted attempts to try to find reasons to support your belief that conscious control is a logical impossibility.

Simple logic isn’t “convoluted” steps, and no matter how much you just ignore that simple logic it doesn’t go away.

In consciously claiming and trying to justify that conscious control is logically impossible you are putting the cart before the horse.
You are using consciously thought out arguments to try to prove that you have no conscious control of your thoughts.
Can you not see why I have to keep pointing this out to you?

Can you not see why repeating logically impossible idiocy while ignoring all the while the argument for why it’s logically impossible idiocy is just dishonest?

Why not instead finally try at least to address the arguments that falsify you? Are you just too dishonest? Too frightened? What?   

[Alan Burns]

AB,

You can’t “get to grips” with idiocy, and if you think it’s demonstrable nonetheless then why don’t you finally attempt at least actually to demonstrate it rather than just assert it to be demonstrable?
 
Wrong again - see above.

Simple logic isn’t “convoluted” steps, and no matter how much you just ignore that simple logic it doesn’t go away.

Can you not see why repeating logically impossible idiocy while ignoring all the while the argument for why it’s logically impossible idiocy is just dishonest?

Why not instead finally try at least to address the arguments that falsify you? Are you just too dishonest? Too frightened? What?   

You continue to demonstrate the reality of your ability to control your own thoughts.
The basic problem you have is the impossibility of applying logic without having control of your thoughts.
The concept of logic does not exist outside your conscious awareness.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You continue to demonstrate the reality of your ability to control your own thoughts.

Stop lying.

The basic problem you have is the impossibility of applying logic without having control of your thoughts.

No, the basic problem is that you just ignore the arguments that explain why “having control of your thoughts” is utter bullshit.

I could explain to you yet again why it’s utter bullshit, but as your behaviour suggests you're too dishonest or too frightened or too dimwitted ever to address the explanation for why it’s utter bullshit, there’d be no point would there.     

The concept of logic does not exist outside your conscious awareness.

Irrelevant.

[Sebastian Toe]

You continue to demonstrate the reality of your ability to control your own thoughts.
The basic problem you have is the impossibility of applying logic without having control of your thoughts.
The concept of logic does not exist outside your conscious awareness.

You continue to demonstrate the reality of your biological brain processing thoughts using entirely deterministic processes.

The basic problem you have is the impossibility of applying logic via your illogical, magic requiring, unevidenced, wishful thinking "soul".

The concept of logic does not require "soul".

[Alan Burns]

I could explain to you yet again why it’s utter bullshit, but as your behaviour suggests you're too dishonest or too frightened or too dimwitted ever to address the explanation for why it’s utter bullshit, there’d be no point would there.     

The problem is that your (consciously thought out) conclusion is based on the false presumption that every event in your material brain is either caused by a previous event or that it is random.  This presumption is false because you cannot claim that events with no perceptible cause must be random.  All you can claim is that these are events whose cause is unknown.  You may continue to deny any form of conscious control, but in doing so you continue to demonstrate the reality of what you try to deny - and deliberately ignore any possible explanation for the source of such control.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The problem is that your (consciously thought out) conclusion is based on the false presumption that every event in your material brain is either caused by a previous event or that it is random.  This presumption is false because you cannot claim that events with no perceptible cause must be random.  All you can claim is that these are events whose cause is unknown.  You may continue to deny any form of conscious control, but in doing so you continue to demonstrate the reality of what you try to deny...

Stop lying. When you outsource the claim of being able "to consciously control your thoughts” to a supposed stand-alone entity ("soul"), whatever it is that stretches your credulity about minds thinking for themselves just relocates the same supposed problem to this supposed entity – and so on forever.

At some dim level you seem to be aware of the problem you’ve given yourself about this, which is why you’ve then had to assert this supposed soul also to be magic, so rules of logic, of physics etc don’t apply to it. It’s pathetic, childish reasoning and dishonest too given how many times you’ve been schooled on it without rebuttal, but you seem to be so heavily invested in this idiocy that lying is all you have let to defend it. 

- and deliberately ignore any possible explanation for the source of such control

More lying. I’m not “deliberately ignoring” anything (unlike you) – I’m rebutting the claim that it’s an explanation at all on the ground that it’s a logical impossibility (and no, "but it's magic innit" doesn't give you a get out of jail free card from that).

What do you hope to achieve by turning up on an mb and telling lies? Didn’t Jesus have something to say about bearing false witness, or do you think you have some kind of exemption from that?     

[Outrider]

This presumption is false because you cannot claim that events with no perceptible cause must be random.

I think you're missing something, here. We have no evidence of events with no perceivable cause - in the logical argument against free will we concede the possibility of 'uncaused' events, showing that escaping causality obviates the notion of will.

All you can claim is that these are events whose cause is unknown.

No, for the sake of argument we show that, if there were such things as uncaused effects, they would be random and therefore not will.

You may continue to deny any form of conscious control, but in doing so you continue to demonstrate the reality of what you try to deny - and deliberately ignore any possible explanation for the source of such control.

If you have evidence of brain activity not the result of material causes then by all means present it, and open up the avenue for some non-material input, but there is to my knowledge no such evidence.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Outy,

If you have evidence of brain activity not the result of material causes then by all means present it, and open up the avenue for some non-material input, but there is to my knowledge no such evidence.

Ah, but have you forgotten that AB has told us that his various claims and assertions are “demonstrable”? OK, he never actually demonstrates them I’ll grant you but, you know, just applying the label “demonstrable” must count for something right? 

[Alan Burns]

Stop lying. When you outsource the claim of being able "to consciously control your thoughts” to a supposed stand-alone entity ("soul"), whatever it is that stretches your credulity about minds thinking for themselves just relocates the same supposed problem to this supposed entity – and so on forever.

I cannot see how you can claim that I am lying.
I am simply offering a feasible explanation for the reality of our ability to control our conscious thought processes.
It is obvious that there can be no physical explanation - which is why you claim our conscious control to be a logical impossibility.
You do not seem to fully understand the concept of a spiritual self which can perceive and interact with our material brain without shackled to infinite chains of cause and effect.
There is no need for any infinite regression.
You are the ultimate source of conscious control, and you have the consciously driven freedom to choose your own destiny.

[Alan Burns]

Ah, but have you forgotten that AB has told us that his various claims and assertions are “demonstrable”? OK, he never actually demonstrates them I’ll grant you but, you know, just applying the label “demonstrable” must count for something right? 

Can you not see that you have just demonstrated your ability to consciously control your own thought processes in composing this reply?
Or do you honestly believe that it all takes place on your subconscious before it pops into your conscious awareness?
And does this act of belief not require some form of conscious control to verify what you purport to believe?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I cannot see how you can claim that I am lying.

Imagine someone posted “2+2=5”. Imagine too that other people took the time to explain to him why this was wrong, and his only reply was “but this is a magic 2+2=5, so I’m right”. Now imagine also that, having played what he thinks to be his get out of jail free card, he never, ever therefore troubles actually to address the explanation he was given.

Now repeat that – what – hundreds of times maybe?

At what point would you conclude that this person’s obduracy was dishonest?

This is essentially what you do. The logic for the impossibility of your “conscious control of your thoughts” notion is unanswerable, so all you have to throw at it is “but magic” but you never, ever even attempt a counter-argument of your own.       

I am simply offering a feasible explanation…

No, you’re offering only a completely unfeasible explanation – see above.

…for the reality of our ability to control our conscious thought processes.

Except your claim here of “the reality” of that is completely wrong only you’ll never address the explanation you’re given for why it’s wrong – also see above. It's like the person in the example endlessly claiming “the reality” of 2+2=5 – it’s just dishonest bullshit.

It is obvious that there can be no physical explanation - which is why you claim our conscious control to be a logical impossibility.

Just calling something “obvious” isn’t a justification of a claim of impossibility. If you want to demonstrate something to be impossible, then you need to attempt at least a justifying argument for that rather than just declare it to be “obvious”.   

You do not seem to fully understand the concept of a spiritual self which can perceive and interact with our material brain without shackled to infinite chains of cause and effect.

No-one “fully understands” that concept because there’s no good reason to think it’s real. There's nothing to understand – epistemologically it's just white noise. Not even wrong.

There is no need for any infinite regression.

But only because it’s magic right? Does anything strike you as problematic with relying on magical thinking to escape all logic and reason?

Anything?

You are the ultimate source of conscious control, and you have the consciously driven freedom to choose your own destiny.

Stop lying. 

[Sebastian Toe]

Can you not see that you have just demonstrated your ability to consciously control your own thought processes in composing this reply?
Or do you honestly believe that it all takes place on your subconscious before it pops into your conscious awareness?
And does this act of belief not require some form of conscious control to verify what you purport to believe?

Can you not see that you have just demonstrated your ability to
use your biological brain encompassing deterministic processes in composing this reply?
Or do you honestly believe that it all takes place using your magic requiring, non evidenced, wishful thinking, "soul" before it pops into your conscious awareness?
And does this act of belief not require some form of biological processing (where current research leads) to verify what you purport to believe?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Can you not see that you have just demonstrated your ability to consciously control your own thought processes in composing this reply?
Or do you honestly believe that it all takes place on your subconscious before it pops into your conscious awareness?
And does this act of belief not require some form of conscious control to verify what you purport to believe?

No, yes and no.

Now stop lying and actually try at least to address the arguments you're given without collapsing instead into "but magic".

[torridon]

You need to get to grips with the demonstrable reality that you do have conscious control of your own thoughts.
It is not "just the way it seems" or just an "experience" of control.  Your control is real - it is demonstrable.

If it were demonstrable, then why have you been unable to demonstrate it.  When was the last time you controlled a thought ? In what way did you change it from what it otherwise would have been ?