Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

No Alan, you are not. You have posted nothing that even resembles a logical argument.

If you disagree with my logical argument then please point out the error rather than just assert it is wrong.
Just to reiterate -
I am using my conscious ability to apply logic to determine that there can be no scientific explanation for our ability to exert control and direct our own thought processes to reach consciously verified conclusions.  If there was a scientific explanation my ability to exert control would no longer exist, because all control would be delegated to physically controlled reactions over which I can have no conscious control.

[Gordon]

I am using my conscious ability to apply logic to determine that there can be no scientific explanation for our ability to exert control and direct our own thought processes to reach consciously verified conclusions.

Which is illogical nonsense, as has been noted previously on many occasions.

If there was a scientific explanation my ability to exert control would no longer exist, because all control would be delegated to physically controlled reactions over which I can have no conscious control.

Yep - that is about right as far as is known: it's just biology, albeit that you don't like that because you don't like the consequences.

[Stranger]

If you disagree with my logical argument then please point out the error rather than just assert it is wrong.

You haven't made one.

Just to reiterate -
I am using my conscious ability to apply logic to determine that there can be no scientific explanation for our ability to exert control and direct our own thought processes to reach consciously verified conclusions.  If there was a scientific explanation my ability to exert control would no longer exist, because all control would be delegated to physically controlled reactions over which I can have no conscious control.

Begging the question fallacy. You've assumed your conclusion, namely that we have some control that goes beyond being deterministic (real meaning) and then asserted that it would disappear if we were deterministic.

Your 'argument' amounts to "I'm magic and if I wasn't magic, I wouldn't be magic".

I have also explained to you before that it is in principle impossible to prove that something cannot have a scientific explanation unless it is logically contradictory (as in your version of 'free will'), in which case, a non-material 'soul' isn't going to help. The reason being that even if you could show a violation of currently known physical laws, you couldn't rule out an unknown. And you've got nowhere near to showing any violation at all.

[Sebastian Toe]

I am not dealing with a mere absence of a scientific explanation.  I am using my conscious ability to apply logic to determine that there can be no scientific explanation for our ability to control and direct our own thought processes to reach consciously verified conclusions.  If there was a scientific explanation my ability to exert control would no longer exist, because all control would be delegated to physically controlled reactions over which I can have no conscious control.

How do you verify your conclusions?

[Alan Burns]

Yep - that is about right as far as is known: it's just biology, albeit that you don't like that because you don't like the consequences.

It is not about likes or dislikes.
It is about the truth of our ability to consciously contemplate the reality in which we all exist and draw consciously verified conclusions.
My contention is that such ability can only be achieved if we have the power to consciously guide our own thoughts - a power which is denied by the materialistic scenario in which everything is a consequence of past events which are beyond our conscious control.

[Alan Burns]

You've assumed your conclusion, namely that we have some control that goes beyond being deterministic (real meaning) and then asserted that it would disappear if we were deterministic.
.

I start with the fact that we do have demonstrable control of our thought processes which we all use to reach consciously verified conclusions.

If such control is entirely determined by consequences to past events then it can only be classed as an inevitable reaction to the past.

So the question remains - Can our thoughts be guided to reach consciously verified conclusions without any feasible means of personal control?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It is not about likes or dislikes.
It is about the truth of our ability to consciously contemplate the reality in which we all exist and draw consciously verified conclusions.
My contention is that such ability can only be achieved if we have the power to consciously guide our own thoughts - a power which is denied by the materialistic scenario in which everything is a consequence of past events which are beyond our conscious control.

But your contention is illogical nonsense. If you want your contentions to be taken seriously instead you need to stop starting with your conclusion “God” and retro-fitting it to unsound justifying arguments, and instead to find out how to make logically sound arguments and then to see where they lead.   

Good luck with it.

[Stranger]

It is not about likes or dislikes.
It is about the truth of our ability to consciously contemplate the reality in which we all exist and draw consciously verified conclusions.
My contention is that such ability can only be achieved if we have the power to consciously guide our own thoughts - a power which is denied by the materialistic scenario in which everything is a consequence of past events which are beyond our conscious control.

We all know what you believe Alan, the problem is you have zero evidence and zero logic to support it. You also still seem to think that the role of consciousness is at all significant. It really isn't.

What is it about thinking that cannot possibly be deterministic (real meaning) and why (without lapsing into more fallacies)?

I start with the fact that we do have demonstrable control of our thought processes which we all use to reach consciously verified conclusions.

Nothing you have claimed about 'free will' or 'control' is demonstrable. You would need to literally rewind time to show you could have chosen differently and then prove that the difference wasn't random. That is clearly impossible.

The ability to be non-deterministic (real meaning) and non-random that you claim we have is therefore not demonstrable.

If such control is entirely determined by consequences to past events then it can only be classed as an inevitable reaction to the past.

Yes. And......?

So the question remains - Can our thoughts be guided to reach consciously verified conclusions without any feasible means of personal control?

Why would there be no 'personal control'?

And why can't you be arsed to learn how to avoid fallacies? It would save a hell of a lot of time...

[Outrider]

I start with the fact that we do have demonstrable control of our thought processes which we all use to reach consciously verified conclusions.

That's not 'demonstrable fact' - the existence of dream, hallucinations and the subconscious shows that we demonstrably do not have control of our thought processes. Of those elements that we're directly aware of we still don't have control of them entirely, we can deliberately process them to a degree, but that deliberate processing is undertaken by a blind process that we can neither turn off nor directly influence.

If such control is entirely determined by consequences to past events then it can only be classed as an inevitable reaction to the past.

Yes. Of course, it might be that it's not entirely determined by previous elements, there may be a random element, but if your predicate is valid then that conclusion is also valid. THAT'S NOT AN ARGUMENT AGAINST THE NOTION.

So the question remains - Can our thoughts be guided to reach consciously verified conclusions without any feasible means of personal control?

Can they? Evidently. Are they, well that's what you're failing to adequately contest.

O.

[Sriram]

Thoughts and emotions can be controlled and even stopped temporarily through certain yogic processes. This shows that these are independent of us and that we can have an influence on them.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Thoughts and emotions can be controlled and even stopped temporarily through certain yogic processes. This shows that these are independent of us and that we can have an influence on them.

No it doesn’t.

[ekim]

So the question remains - Can our thoughts be guided to reach consciously verified conclusions without any feasible means of personal control?

Another way of looking at it, Alan, is that it is not so much that 'thoughts are guided' but that one is able to choose to direct attention (consciousness) to a particular train of thought.  However, the driving force is likely to be based upon a desire to do so or not do so.  You notion of free will falls by the wayside.
You will see how Jesus, near his death, saw this as a choice between a personal desire and what his God desired in Matt 26 38:39 ....
"I feel sorrowful towards death.
O God, if it is possible,  let this impending destiny be averted, but only if it conforms to your will."

[Alan Burns]

Why would there be no 'personal control'?

From what I understand from your responses you seem to presume that personal control can be achieved  through inevitable reactions to past events.  That is not the reality I perceive, nor is it a feasible means of guiding what exists in our conscious awareness to come up with verified conclusions.  You keep insisting that the role of conscious awareness is insignificant.  Our conscious awareness provides the only reality we know of - without it we would know nothing because we would not exist.

[torridon]

Thoughts and emotions can be controlled and even stopped temporarily through certain yogic processes. This shows that these are independent of us and that we can have an influence on them.

Perhaps I ought to take up yogic practices to see if that will help with ear worms which I seem to get more and more as I get older.  Damn irritating, they often keep me awake at night. 

The phenomenon of unwanted thoughts highlights the illusory nature of our sense of being a singular, coherent, purposeful, enduring, self.  Our sense of self is cobbled together by processes of mind but underneath there is a war going on between multiple competing impulses and contradicting desires, all trying to get the upper hand.

[Stranger]

From what I understand from your responses you seem to presume that personal control can be achieved  through inevitable reactions to past events.  That is not the reality I perceive...

Firstly, what you subjectively 'perceive' is totally irrelevant to a logical argument. Secondly, it is what I 'perceive', now what? The point is that we both experience the freedom to do exactly as we like, to think about what we want to think about, and so on. There is nothing in doing any of those things that contradicts being a deterministic consequence of the past.

There are reasons why we are the people we are and hence how we react and what we choose to do and think about. You cannot be 'free' of the person nature, nurture, and experience has made you.

This has been explained to you endless times before and you never have an answer except to dismiss it and then claim you have logic without ever posting any. What you need to understand is there is nothing in the way I see things that is contradicted by any evidence or any logic.

And all that is before we come to the fact that your proposed alternative is self-contradictory and hence logically impossible.

...nor is it a feasible means of guiding what exists in our conscious awareness to come up with verified conclusions.

Argument by assertion and/or argument from incredulity.

You keep insisting that the role of conscious awareness is insignificant.  Our conscious awareness provides the only reality we know of - without it we would know nothing because we would not exist.

You really do seem to be determined to misunderstand this. It is not relevant to the argument. Of course it's important to us as people.

As far as our 'freedom' goes, it doesn't matter whether consciousness is a story we tell ourselves after the fact, or is a significant or minor part of our choice-making. The arguments for the logical view and against your impossible contradictory view stand regardless.

Very often you seem to emphasise consciousness as if a conscious choice can't be just as determined by the past as a subconscious one. It obviously can.

[Sriram]

Perhaps I ought to take up yogic practices to see if that will help with ear worms which I seem to get more and more as I get older.  Damn irritating, they often keep me awake at night. 

The phenomenon of unwanted thoughts highlights the illusory nature of our sense of being a singular, coherent, purposeful, enduring, self.  Our sense of self is cobbled together by processes of mind but underneath there is a war going on between multiple competing impulses and contradicting desires, all trying to get the upper hand.

The self (consciousness) is the core. The mind (and body) is an appendage that attaches itself to the self.   

The mind (thoughts and emotions) are like a field around our consciousness (self). They are the interface through which we interact with the environment.

Through practice of certain yogic techniques we can detach ourselves on and off, from the mind and therefore we can control it and sometimes even stop it completely.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

The self (consciousness) is the core. The mind (and body) is an appendage that attaches itself to the self.   

The mind (thoughts and emotions) are like a field around our consciousness (self). They are the interface through which we interact with the environment.

Through practice of certain yogic techniques we can detach ourselves on and off, from the mind and therefore we can control it and sometimes even stop it completely.

What you’re talking about here is different aspects of mind – not about separate minds interacting with each other. AB on the other hand has the notion of humans as automata who are then invaded at conception or possibly at birth (or something – he’s a bit fuzzy on the details) by a homunculus that he calls a “soul” that somehow jumps into our heads or something (ditto re the details) and then pulls the strings by some unknown means (details not available again I'm afraid). 

There’s no evidence for any of this of course, and nor any logically sound arguments for it even in principle but nonetheless fundamentally he seems to be positing two different minds here (the “soul” mind being magically free of the constraints of cause and effect, and it seems of time itself too) working in harness rather than a single mind with different and sometimes competing functions.   

[Enki]

Alan,
By the lack of your response to my post 49198 where I asked you the question, "So what do you mean by "I" and what evidence have you to back your ideas?", am I to assume that you have no evidence whatsoever?

[torridon]

...  Our conscious awareness provides the only reality we know of - without it we would know nothing because we would not exist.

We would still exist without consciousness, but we would not know that we exist.  When in a deep non-dreaming sleep we are not conscious but we still exist.  Our minds are still busy even then, although we are not made aware of it.  Consciousness is about awareness, it is not about existence. You could say that our 'conscious self' does not exist during deep sleep, and this reflects the fact that our conscious self is not something with its own ontological basis, distinct from the body, but is rather part of the phenomenology of mind, something that is generated temporally under hormonal control starting upon waking in the morning and winding down when we go back to sleep at night.

[Alan Burns]

Alan,
By the lack of your response to my post 49198 where I asked you the question, "So what do you mean by "I" and what evidence have you to back your ideas?", am I to assume that you have no evidence whatsoever?

"I" is the source of all you choose to do, say or think.
Without "I" your existence would be a meaningless blob of reconstituted star debris with no will or purpose of your own.

[Alan Burns]

We would still exist without consciousness, but we would not know that we exist.  When in a deep non-dreaming sleep we are not conscious but we still exist.  Our minds are still busy even then, although we are not made aware of it.  Consciousness is about awareness, it is not about existence. You could say that our 'conscious self' does not exist during deep sleep, and this reflects the fact that our conscious self is not something with its own ontological basis, distinct from the body, but is rather part of the phenomenology of mind, something that is generated temporally under hormonal control starting upon waking in the morning and winding down when we go back to sleep at night.

You really do struggle to try to justify your materialistic scenario.
In essence there would be no knowledge of existence without the miraculous gift of self awareness which defies any materialistic definition or explanation.

[torridon]

You really do struggle to try to justify your materialistic scenario.
In essence there would be no knowledge of existence without the miraculous gift of self awareness which defies any materialistic definition or explanation.

Just because we do not yet understand things fully does not license us to label them as 'miraculous'.  Back in the day, people did not understand how the Sun appeared to move across the sky, apparently unaided, no strings, no horses, must be magical right?

If we all thought like that, what would the world be like ?  We wouldn't be able to write posts on a message board like this, for starters.

[Alan Burns]

Just because we do not yet understand things fully does not license us to label them as 'miraculous'.  Back in the day, people did not understand how the Sun appeared to move across the sky, apparently unaided, no strings, no horses, must be magical right?

If we all thought like that, what would the world be like ?  We wouldn't be able to write posts on a message board like this, for starters.

Without our God given gift of free will, none of us would be able to write posts on a message board like this.
It is our miraculous ability to think about the reality we exist in which has enabled us to more fully understand how things work.

[Sebastian Toe]

Without our God given gift of free will, none of us would be able to write posts on a message board like this.
It is our miraculous ability to think about the reality we exist in which has enabled us to more fully understand how things work.

Without our wonderfully evolved biological brain none of us would be able to write posts on a message board like this.
It is our deterministic ability to think about the reality we exist in which has enabled us to more fully understand how things work.

[torridon]

Without our God given gift of free will, none of us would be able to write posts on a message board like this.
It is our miraculous ability to think about the reality we exist in which has enabled us to more fully understand how things work.

We write posts here because we want to, not because some mysterious being gave us miraculous powers.