Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

My question made perfect sense...

No, it did not.

I've explained to you multiple times that, since you rejected the obvious meaning, and absent any alternative meaningful definition from you, "conscious control of our own thought processes" is now meaningless gibberish.

...why can't you answer it?

Because it contained meaningless gibberish.

What controls your own thought processes?
What can be held accountable for their accuracy?
What is the ultimate judge of being right or wrong?

Fuck knows. It's all a total mystery.

Now what...?

[Of course, it isn't a total mystery, but I'm making a point.]

"Conscious control of our own thought processes" is just as much meaningless gibberish as it was before, and you still have no logical argument or any scrap of evidence that even hints that anything supernatural even might be needed for minds to work.

All you have is your silly baseless, utterly absurd assertions, just like you did before I answered the questions....

Are all the big words and colouring in getting through to your apparently kindergarten-level 'intellect'?

[Alan Burns]

The 'conscious self' does not control thought processes as it is a projection of deeper levels of mind.  Rather think of it as a domain where conscious thoughts occur. We cannot control the processes that give rise to our sense of self and neither can we control the processes that give rise to the thoughts that emerge into mind.

So how can you give any credibility to what emerges into your mind ?
How do you know how accurate your post is ?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The questions are not irrelevant

Yes they are. The only relevant question is how you’d propose to address the infinite regress your speculation “soul” creates. Only if you manage ever to deal with that such that “soul” ceases to be logically impossible need other question arise.

They are not incoherent.

Yes they are. “What is the ultimate judge of being right or wrong?” for example is the fallacy of begging the question. For it to become coherent you’d have to establish first that there’s even a need for an “ultimate judge of being right and wrong”.
 

Why won't you answer them?

Because they’re either irrelevant or incoherent. Or both.

Again: you’re the one claiming a “soul” so it’s your job to demonstrate your claim to be true. It’s NOT anyone else’s job to provide other explanations to your (logically impossible) attempt at an explanation.

I’ve explained this to you may times now without your response, and I’ve also given you an analogy to explain it (involving germs and disease) which, with your typical literal-mindedness, you entirely failed to grasp.

I’m not sure how to make this even simpler for you. Do you perhaps know any reasonably smart ten-year-olds whose minds haven’t been polluted by your religious idiocies who could explain it to you instead?   

What controls your own thought processes?
What can be held accountable for their accuracy?
What is the ultimate judge of being right or wrong?

Irrelevant or incoherent. Or both.

If not your conscious self, then what?

Nothing “controls” your thought processes. The idea is incoherent. White noise. Gibberish. Epistemically equivalent to “where do leprechauns get their shoes mended?”

Only when this sinks in will the scales finally fall from your eyes.

I’m not holding my breath about that though.     

[Sebastian Toe]

So how can you give any credibility to what emerges into your mind ?
How do you know how accurate your post is ?

By by using his brain to think about it.
Just like you do when making up magic stories about "souls".

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

So how can you give any credibility to what emerges into your mind ?
How do you know how accurate your post is ?

By the application of logical thinking to real world experience to verify whether or not it produces solutions. That's why 'planes fly, medicines cure and rockets arrive at Mars.

With religious faith claims on the other hand, all we have is guessing – generally incoherent or logically false guessing too, as your posts here so amply demonstrate.   

[Alan Burns]

AB,

By the application of logical thinking to real world experience to verify whether or not it produces solutions. That's why 'planes fly, medicines cure and rockets arrive at Mars.

Yes of course we can apply logical thinking.
But you have never given any feasible explanation to how such thinking can be applied without conscious control of your thoughts.
Neither have you come up with a means to verify whether or not it produces solutions without conscious control of your thoughts.
Do you still believe that such conscious control is a logical impossibility?
Does the act of belief not require any conscious manipulation of your thoughts?
Do you not realise that your conscious self comprises everything you have ever known, every experience, every thought?
Without your conscious self you would not exist - do not under estimate its power.

[Enki]

Let's unpack this a little, shall we, Alan.

It is uncontrollable in the context that we have no control over the laws of physics which would define the reactions within a material brain.

You haven't explained the 'we' bit though. The overwhelming evidence seems to suggest, the 'we' is basically our brain functions, making your idea of control here somewhat puzzling. You mean the brain controls the brain or maybe the brain doesn't control the brain?!

So my question is what can initiate and control and judge the process of verification which we perceive in our conscious awareness?

Almost certainly our brain processes, most of which are subconscious, and where it is quite feasible consciousness is one element that is used to focus and provide information.

At the heart of this argument is what comprises conscious awareness and how does it work.  In your explanation you seem to imply that conscious awareness is generated by material reactions which pass information on to other parts of the brain.  But if the information which is passed on already exists, what role does our conscious awareness actually take on?

As I have already said in post 47801,  "However, with the vast amount of information being processed by our brains, we need some sort of focus to extrapolate what our brains consider to be important at any particular time." Until this focus is established, the brain doesn't absorb this information well. E.g. the famous gorilla video.

My conjecture is that conscious awareness is not a material reaction, but awareness of material reactions and material states within our brain.

I know you do, but your conjecture has no supporting evidence as far as I can see.

Then we come to the question of conscious thoughts - what they comprise, how they work and what they do.  You probably know my take on this from the many posts I have made, but the replies to my posts offer no real insight into the deep issues involved around conscious thought processes.  They comprise far more that inevitable, physically driven reactions to past events.

You yourself have never given any detailed explanation of how these 'deep issues around conscious thought processes' work, Alan. So, it's a bit rich that you ask this of others. The only assertion of evidence you ever seem to give is that anyone replying shows by the fact that they are replying that that is actual evidence that your conjecture has to be correct. However my suggestion that consciousness informs the brain rather than controls it is at least of equal validity(it doesn't have to be correct) and furthermore it doesn't suffer from the lapse in logic that your conjecture suffers from.

How do you define and judge credibility with material reactions?

I would say that the vast amounts of evidence that the material brain affects everything we do and think  through its electrical activity reflects such credibility. I have no evidence for any non material reactions.

What is there to cast judgement on what is right or what is wrong in an entirely materialistic scenario?

Well certainly not a god, and especially not the Christian one. I have a morality which I try to adhere to. For me, this is probably driven by such traits as empathy  and natural feelings of co-operation and responsibility towards others. Culture, environment, experience, upbringing, and a rational approach, for me, superimpose upon those feelings, so that I attempt to give the most constructive outcome which would satisfy my original motivations. I do not see this as some 'distortion' of morality in any way. My morality seems entirely consistent with certain evolutionary motivations rather than reflecting some sort of morality which has an objective existence. Thus my sense of moral wrongness/rightness depends upon my own unique characteristics wedded to group characteristics via evolution.

The concept of the human soul as has been perceived throughout human history offers the only feasible explanation

How on earth does the fact that a lots of people both past and present believe(d) in a whole host of disparate concepts about a 'soul' give credence to the actuality of there being one? And, finally, it comes as no surprise that you finish with a blatent assertion. No brownie points for you, I'm afraid.

[torridon]

So how can you give any credibility to what emerges into your mind ?
How do you know how accurate your post is ?

What emerges into mind is all we have to go on and that we experience perceptual and cognitive illusions is evidence that our minds do indeed get things 'wrong' much of the time.  Minds did not evolve to reveal truth or reality, they evolved to be as useful as possible at minimal calorific cost. Things 'feel' correct to us when a new perception aligns well to our inner model and this holds true for more abstract forms of higher cognition.  Ask a hundred people whether there is a God and which is the correct religion, you'll get a hundred different answers; yet for each person, their answer is credible within their own mind. 

[Stranger]

Yes of course we can apply logical thinking.

Some of us can. You apparently find it next to impossible.

But you have never given any feasible explanation to how such thinking can be applied without conscious control of your thoughts.
Neither have you come up with a means to verify whether or not it produces solutions without conscious control of your thoughts.

And you have never given a feasible explanation of what you even mean by "conscious control of our own thoughts", if it doesn't mean consciously thinking about each thought before we think it. It is therefore simply meaningless waffle.

You also seem totally unable to grasp the basic, simple logic that the lack of an alternative explanation (even if there was one, which there isn't) does not make their own baseless fairytale about something any more believable.

To claim or imply it does is logically illiterate. It is an argument from ignorance fallacy. Think about it. There are plenty of things that are unknown in science and they all have multiple conjectures or hypotheses that various people have proposed as the answer but, generally speaking, they are not daft enough to go around claiming that the mere existence of the unknown supports their own pet idea. Also, generally speaking, their ideas do not contain logical contradictions or meaningless gobbledygook.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Yes of course we can apply logical thinking.

“We”? Some of us can certainly, but you on the other hand seem to be largely unaware of or indifferent to what logical thinking actually entails. Time and again you commit any of multiple logical fallacies and then ignore the problem when it’s explained to you, and when you do grasp enough of logical argument to see that it falsifies you you just dismiss it as “man-made” or some such. That is, you privilege your (logically false) subjective opinions over (logically justified) objective facts when the two contradict each other. 

But you have never given any feasible explanation to how such thinking can be applied without conscious control of your thoughts.

So what relevance do you think the (supposed) absence of a “feasible explanation” for that has to changing the logical impossibility of your (supposed) explanation?

Neither have you come up with a means to verify whether or not it produces solutions without conscious control of your thoughts.

Not true, but again - what relevance do you think the (supposed) absence of a means to do that has to changing the logical impossibility of your (supposed) means?

Do you still believe that such conscious control is a logical impossibility?

As the logic for it being impossible hasn’t been falsified, yes.
 

Does the act of belief not require any conscious manipulation of your thoughts?

As that would be logically impossible, no.

Do you not realise that your conscious self comprises everything you have ever known, every experience, every thought?

And speaking of logical fallacies – that one is called begging the question (not that you care). Do you not realise that leprechauns wear green so as not to show up against the grass?

My (and your) "every experience" etc actually reside largely in my (and your) sub-conscious. 

Without your conscious self you would not exist - do not under estimate its power.

Actually I’d likely still exist but I wouldn’t be aware of it, but in any case none of that has anything to do with the logical impossibility of your claim “soul”.

So now you’ve steered us once again down your standard list of fallacies, diversions and irrelevancies how about you finally address the logical impossibility of your claim “soul”?   

[Alan Burns]

Interesting reflection on today's gospel reading from Word on Fire:

Friends, today’s Gospel tells of the passion of John the Baptist, and it suggests to me “the Herod principle” that I like to apply to contemporary atheists. The Gospels tell us that Herod Antipas arrested John the Baptist because the prophet had publicly challenged the king. Herod threw John into prison, but then, we are told, the king loved secretly to listen to the prophet, who continued to preach from his cell.



A basic assumption of biblical people is that everyone is hardwired for God. As the Psalmist prayed, “My soul rests in God alone.” My wager is that everyone—and that includes Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins—implicitly wants God and hence remains permanently fascinated by the things of God.



Though the fierce atheists of today profess that they would like to eliminate religious speech and religious ideas, secretly they love to listen as people speak of God. So I say to Christians and other believers: be ready for a good fight, and get some spiritual weapons in your hands. And I say to the atheists: I’ll keep talking—because I know, despite your protestations, that your hearts are listening.

[Gordon]

Is this where I bang my tambourine and offer up a hallelujah?

[Maeght]

Interesting reflection on today's gospel reading from Word on Fire:

Friends, today’s Gospel tells of the passion of John the Baptist, and it suggests to me “the Herod principle” that I like to apply to contemporary atheists. The Gospels tell us that Herod Antipas arrested John the Baptist because the prophet had publicly challenged the king. Herod threw John into prison, but then, we are told, the king loved secretly to listen to the prophet, who continued to preach from his cell.



A basic assumption of biblical people is that everyone is hardwired for God. As the Psalmist prayed, “My soul rests in God alone.” My wager is that everyone—and that includes Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins—implicitly wants God and hence remains permanently fascinated by the things of God.



Though the fierce atheists of today profess that they would like to eliminate religious speech and religious ideas, secretly they love to listen as people speak of God. So I say to Christians and other believers: be ready for a good fight, and get some spiritual weapons in your hands. And I say to the atheists: I’ll keep talking—because I know, despite your protestations, that your hearts are listening.

Can't see anything interesting in that nonsense.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Interesting reflection on today's gospel reading from Word on Fire:

Friends, today’s Gospel tells of the passion of John the Baptist, and it suggests to me “the Herod principle” that I like to apply to contemporary atheists. The Gospels tell us that Herod Antipas arrested John the Baptist because the prophet had publicly challenged the king. Herod threw John into prison, but then, we are told, the king loved secretly to listen to the prophet, who continued to preach from his cell.

“Contemporary atheists” aren’t a homogeneous group; they (we) are just people who can identify where the arguments attempted for god(s) are false.

Not a good start.

A basic assumption of biblical people is that everyone is hardwired for God. As the Psalmist prayed, “My soul rests in God alone.” My wager is that everyone—and that includes Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins—implicitly wants God…

That’s a wager he’d likely lose. For my part, the absence of sound reasoning for “god” makes me an atheist; the implications if the biblical god was real nonetheless make me an antitheist. If “god” was real he’d be a genocidal monster – who would want that? 

…and hence remains permanently fascinated by the things of God.

Wrong again. By definition atheists cannot be “fascinated by the things of God”. What’s “fascinating” is the arguments and behaviours of people who think there are gods.   

Though the fierce atheists of today profess that they would like to eliminate religious speech and religious ideas,…

He's lying now. Can you think of any prominent atheists who aren’t also proponents of free speech?

Now compare that especially with theocratic states with blasphemy laws. Which would you say are actually trying to eliminate free speech and ideas?   

… secretly they love to listen as people speak of God.

So now this joker claims to know what “atheists” collectively “secretly think” eh?

Seriously though?
 

So I say to Christians and other believers: be ready for a good fight, and get some spiritual weapons in your hands. And I say to the atheists: I’ll keep talking—because I know, despite your protestations, that your hearts are listening.

And I say to this half-wit, examine your justifications for your beliefs, stop pretending to know what “atheists” as a whole “secretly” think, and stop lying about atheists and free speech.   

[Enki]

Interesting reflection on today's gospel reading from Word on Fire:

Friends, today’s Gospel tells of the passion of John the Baptist, and it suggests to me “the Herod principle” that I like to apply to contemporary atheists. The Gospels tell us that Herod Antipas arrested John the Baptist because the prophet had publicly challenged the king. Herod threw John into prison, but then, we are told, the king loved secretly to listen to the prophet, who continued to preach from his cell.



A basic assumption of biblical people is that everyone is hardwired for God. As the Psalmist prayed, “My soul rests in God alone.” My wager is that everyone—and that includes Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins—implicitly wants God and hence remains permanently fascinated by the things of God.



Though the fierce atheists of today profess that they would like to eliminate religious speech and religious ideas, secretly they love to listen as people speak of God. So I say to Christians and other believers: be ready for a good fight, and get some spiritual weapons in your hands. And I say to the atheists: I’ll keep talking—because I know, despite your protestations, that your hearts are listening.

Or could it be that some Christians, such as the writer of the above, focus on atheists because somewhere deep inside they know that atheist arguments are valid? 

[Alan Burns]

AB,

“We”? Some of us can certainly, but you on the other hand seem to be largely unaware of or indifferent to what logical thinking actually entails. Time and again you commit any of multiple logical fallacies and then ignore the problem when it’s explained to you, and when you do grasp enough of logical argument to see that it falsifies you you just dismiss it as “man-made” or some such. That is, you privilege your (logically false) subjective opinions over (logically justified) objective facts when the two contradict each other. 

So what relevance do you think the (supposed) absence of a “feasible explanation” for that has to changing the logical impossibility of your (supposed) explanation?

Not true, but again - what relevance do you think the (supposed) absence of a means to do that has to changing the logical impossibility of your (supposed) means?

As the logic for it being impossible hasn’t been falsified, yes.
 
As that would be logically impossible, no.

And speaking of logical fallacies – that one is called begging the question (not that you care). Do you not realise that leprechauns wear green so as not to show up against the grass?

My (and your) "every experience" etc actually reside largely in my (and your) sub-conscious. 

Actually I’d likely still exist but I wouldn’t be aware of it, but in any case none of that has anything to do with the logical impossibility of your claim “soul”.

So now you’ve steered us once again down your standard list of fallacies, diversions and irrelevancies how about you finally address the logical impossibility of your claim “soul”?

So you have somehow figured out that conscious control of your thoughts is a logical impossibility because of your deduction that it would lead to an infinite regress, and your replies above seem to hinge on the accuracy of this profound conclusion.

So I ask again, how could you get to this conclusion without employing conscious control of your thought processes?
You try to dodge this question by claiming it is irrelevant.
But it is entirely relevant, because without your conscious ability to contemplate what exists in your conscious awareness, to formulate and apply logical criteria and to consciously verify your conclusion it would be impossible to reach any conclusion.

I totally agree with your conclusion that conscious control would be impossible in the time related "cause and effect" scenario deduced from observation of material behaviour, so for conscious control of our thoughts to be a reality we must look beyond the premiss of time related cause and effect.

We can both agree that every event in the thinking process must have a cause, but where we differ is in your presumption that all causes must be derived from past events which are beyond our conscious control.  So I offer you the hypothesis that in order to explain our ability to work things out and reach verifiable conclusions we need the power to induce the events from within the conscious entity of awareness (which is you) needed to guide and manipulate what exists in our conscious awareness to reach consciously verified conclusions.  The only way this could be achieved is from a time independent entity - the ever present state of your human soul.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

So you have somehow figured out that conscious control of your thoughts is a logical impossibility because of your deduction that it would lead to an infinite regress, and your replies above seem to hinge on the accuracy of this profound conclusion.

It’s not particularly profound, but yes. Moreover it shall remain “accurate” (ie logically sound) until and unless it’s falsified. 

So I ask again, how could you get to this conclusion without employing conscious control of your thought processes?
You try to dodge this question by claiming it is irrelevant.
But it is entirely relevant, because without your conscious ability to contemplate what exists in your conscious awareness, to formulate and apply logical criteria and to consciously verify your conclusion it would be impossible to reach any conclusion.

Please stop lying. If I was “dodging” the question I’d just ignore it – something you do all the time by the way. That’s not what I do though is it. What I actually do is to explain to you WHY it’s irrelevant. You can engage or not with that “why” as you please (so far, you’ve shown no sign of doing so) but you cannot pretend that it hasn’t been addressed. 

I totally agree with your conclusion that conscious control would be impossible in the time related "cause and effect" scenario deduced from observation of material behaviour, so for conscious control of our thoughts to be a reality we must look beyond the premiss of time related cause and effect.

No. “...we must” first address whether there are any grounds for thinking such a thing exists at all. So far at least, you’ve failed to produce any. 

We can both agree that every event in the thinking process must have a cause, but where we differ is in your presumption that all causes must be derived from past events which are beyond our conscious control.

It's not a “presumption”, it’s a position based on logic. And until and unless that logic is falsified, it’ll remain so.

So I offer you the hypothesis that in order to explain our ability to work things out and reach verifiable conclusions we need the power to induce the events from within the conscious entity of awareness (which is you) needed to guide and manipulate what exists in our conscious awareness to reach consciously verified conclusions.  The only way this could be achieved is from a time independent entity - the ever present state of your human soul.

That’s not a hypothesis – it’s just a conjecture based on a false a priori assumption, resting on magical thinking and concluding in an arbitrarily selected pseudo-solution for which there’s no evidence at all.   

Apart from all that though…

[Alan Burns]

AB,

It’s not particularly profound, but yes. Moreover it shall remain “accurate” (ie logically sound) until and unless it’s falsified. 

Your consciously driven ability to reach and verify such a conclusion totally falsifies it.
How else could you consciously come to such a conclusion?

Please stop lying. If I was “dodging” the question I’d just ignore it – something you do all the time by the way. That’s not what I do though is it. What I actually do is to explain to you WHY it’s irrelevant. You can engage or not with that “why” as you please (so far, you’ve shown no sign of doing so) but you cannot pretend that it hasn’t been addressed. 

You fail to give an answer to how you can come to verified conclusions without conscious control of your thought processes.
You have never explained why it is irrelevant.
Is it because you are unable to give a viable answer?

[Sebastian Toe]

Your consciously driven ability to reach and verify such a conclusion totally falsifies it.
How else could you consciously come to such a conclusion?You fail to give an answer to how you can come to verified conclusions without conscious control of your thought processes.
You have never explained why it is irrelevant.
Is it because you are unable to give a viable answer?

Once more Alan, your reply confirms that you have been thinking, contemplating and verifying. All by using your biological brain.
The fact that your conclusions are rendered useless by logic, evidence and the sheer impossibility of a magic requiring, unevidenced, wishful thinking, made up entity which you label "soul" still continues to bypass you is indeed a mystery to many observers of this thread

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Your consciously driven ability to reach and verify such a conclusion totally falsifies it.

No it doesn’t. Why would you just assert such a claim?

How else could you consciously come to such a conclusion?

Most likely by means of a single, integrated, hugely complex meat computer called a brain from which consciousness emerges. In any case though, your incredulity about that isn’t an argument for an alternative – it’s just an expression of your incredulity.   

You fail to give an answer to how you can come to verified conclusions without conscious control of your thought processes.

Because it’s irrelevant for the reasons I keep explaining to you and you keep ignoring. Even if the answer was a flat “no idea”, that wouldn’t for one moment make your logically impossible answer somehow less logically impossible. You’re still marooned in the same mistake as the pre-germ theory of disease person claiming the absence of an explanation for disease somehow justified his claim of evil spirits therefore doing it.     

[You have never explained why it is irrelevant.

Stop lying. I’ve done it probably dozens of times now, only for you to ignore the explanation each time it’s given to you.

Is it because you are unable to give a viable answer?

Perhaps if you tried at least not lie about that it would help you?

[Alan Burns]

Your consciously driven ability to reach and verify such a conclusion totally falsifies it.

No it doesn’t. Why would you just assert such a claim?

It is not an assertion.
It is a logical deduction based on the need for conscious control of thought processes to reach consciously verified conclusions

   

[Sebastian Toe]

No it doesn’t. Why would you just assert such a claim?


It is a logical deduction based on the need for conscious control of thought processes to reach consciously verified conclusions

 

..but a we don't need nor in fact can ever have your logically hopeless, magic requiring version of the thing you wish for ie "soul"!
So your deduction is invalid.
Nice try though.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It is not an assertion.

Yes it is – that's all it is.

It is a logical deduction based on the need for conscious control of thought processes to reach consciously verified conclusions

It's a logically false deduction because:

1. You've yet to demonstrate any such need; and

2. Even if you had demonstrated such a need, the answer cannot be a logically impossible one.

Oh, and why have you just ignored again the corrections I gave you in my last reply? 

[Alan Burns]

It's a logically false deduction because:

1. You've yet to demonstrate any such need; and

But you have never demonstrated how verified logical deductions can emerge from unguided subconscious brain activity

2. Even if you had demonstrated such a need, the answer cannot be a logically impossible one.

It is you who have deemed it to be logically impossible.
My logical deductions do not agree with yours.
And if our logical deductions result from unguided biological reactions, how can any conscious judgement be made about whose logical deductions are correct?

Oh, and why have you just ignored again the corrections I gave you in my last reply?

Your "corrections" would appear to be entirely derived from your (false) presumption that we are unable to guide our own thought processes.

[Sebastian Toe]

But you have never demonstrated how verified logical deductions can emerge from unguided subconscious brain activityI

..but he did as did you, as do you as does everyone here.
Demonstrated by their ability to post without resorting to mystical, magic requiring, logic free "souls".