Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I note that, as so often, you’ve just ignored the various falsifying arguments you were given. What's your problem here? Do you not understand the words? Do you not understand the ideas? Are so rude that you both won’t answer anything and won’t explain why you won’t answer anything? Is your intellect so boiled by religious idiocies that you just can’t allow yourself to entertain the thought that they are idiocies? What?

What on earth is the point of being on a discussion forum if you no have no intention of discussing anything, and instead just repeat the same wrongheaded assertions over and over again?

Your reasons appear to be entirely based upon your own logically deduced conclusion that conscious control of your thoughts is deemed to be a logical impossibility.

Not just my reasoning – the reasoning of anyone capable of it, but yes.

In drawing this conclusion you are providing ample evidence that conscious control of your thoughts was a reality needed to reach such a conclusion.

Flat wrong for the reasons that keep being given to you and that you’re too scared, too dim-witted or too brainwashed to address.
 

You may label conscious control to be a logical impossibility, but this in no way can alter the fact that it is a demonstrable reality.

This is rhetorically equivalent to "you may label gravity being invisible pixies pulling stuff down with very thin strings to be a logical impossibility, but this in no way can alter the fact that it is a demonstrable reality". Neither claim is a demonstrable reality at all, and nor have you even managed to produce one step toward actually demonstrating any such thing.

Once again: if you want to stop making a fool of yourself here you need to understand and then attempt at least the basics of logical argument. Why won’t you do that? Is it:

A. Because you can’t be bothered;

B. Because you’re frightened of the possible consequences if you did;

C. Because you just don’t understand the question; or

D. Something else?

You literally only need answer this with one letter so I really can’t make it any simpler or less onerous for you to do. 

[Alan Burns]

Not just my reasoning – the reasoning of anyone capable of it, but yes.

So you are trying to imply that anyone capable of reasoning should realise that they have no conscious control of their thought processes.

Do you honestly realise what you are saying here?

[Alan Burns]

An interesting video about an ex right hand man of Richard Dawkins becoming a Christian -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_ijfh6JXY0

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

So you are trying to imply that anyone capable of reasoning should realise that they have no conscious control of their thought processes.

No, I'm arguing with reasoning that you cannot or will not rebut that we "have no conscious control of our thought processes".

Do you honestly realise what you are saying here?

Yes. Why don't you?

And while I'm here, why won't you learn anything about logical argument either?

[torridon]

So you are trying to imply that anyone capable of reasoning should realise that they have no conscious control of their thought processes.

Can you consciously control which thought to think next, apart from via other thought processes ?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Fully aware that you struggle with analogies, nonetheless let me try one now in the (probably forlorn) hope that you’ll actually be capable of grasping it and honest enough to try at least to address it.

You rightly point out that our current understanding of consciousness is incomplete. You use that incompleteness to insert a conjecture you call “soul” that you assert to do the thinking instead. When it’s explained to you that there’s no evidence for souls and that a soul doing some thinking would itself have your same problem of a single entity being unable to think for itself you run away or resort effectively to “but magic”.

Our current understanding of gravity is also incomplete, especially at the quantum level. Using your reasoning, I therefore assert it occurring naturally to be impossible and I also assert the explanation for it to be invisible pixies holding stuff down with strings too thin to be observed. You (presumably) would also object that there is no evidence at all for these supposed pixies, and moreover that if you took my claim seriously I’d need another set of pixies to hold them down and so on in an infinite regress. Thus my claim is a logical impossibility.  When you do that though I too either just run away or claim pixies to be “magic”.

That is, we have two analogous examples of the argument you’re attempting. Can you think therefore of any reason for me to take your claim about souls any more seriously than you’d take my claim of pixies?   

[Alan Burns]

That is, we have two analogous examples of the argument you’re attempting. Can you think therefore of any reason for me to take your claim about souls any more seriously than you’d take my claim of pixies?   

We know gravity exists because of what it does, though we do not fully understand how it works.
Similarly we know our souls exist because of what they do (give us freedom to control what we do, think or say), though we do not understand how they work.

What would it take for you to realise that you do have conscious control of your thoughts?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

We know gravity exists because of what it does, though we do not fully understand how it works.
Similarly we know our souls exist because of what they do (give us freedom to control what we do, think or say), though we do not understand how they work.

What would it take for you to realise that you do have conscious control of your thoughts?

We know consciousness exists because of what it does, though we do not fully understand how it works.

Similarly we know gravity pixies exist exist because of what they do (pull objects down with invisible strings), though we do not understand how they work.

What would it take for you to realise that pixies hold stuff down with invisible strings?

Do you just not understand how analogies work, or are you so dishonest that you simply will not address why exactly the same reasoning you attempt to justify your claim “souls” should be denied to me to justify my claim “gravity pixies”?

[Maeght]

We know gravity exists because of what it does, though we do not fully understand how it works.
Similarly we know our souls exist because of what they do (give us freedom to control what we do, think or say), though we do not understand how they work.

What would it take for you to realise that you do have conscious control of your thoughts?

Of course we don't know souls exist Alan. You believe it and make claims based on that belief, nothing more.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB,

Fully aware that you struggle with analogies, nonetheless let me try one now in the (probably forlorn) hope that you’ll actually be capable of grasping it and honest enough to try at least to address it.

You rightly point out that our current understanding of consciousness is incomplete. You use that incompleteness to insert a conjecture you call “soul” that you assert to do the thinking instead. When it’s explained to you that there’s no evidence for souls and that a soul doing some thinking would itself have your same problem of a single entity being unable to think for itself you run away or resort effectively to “but magic”.

Our current understanding of gravity is also incomplete, especially at the quantum level. Using your reasoning, I therefore assert it occurring naturally to be impossible and I also assert the explanation for it to be invisible pixies holding stuff down with strings too thin to be observed. You (presumably) would also object that there is no evidence at all for these supposed pixies, and moreover that if you took my claim seriously I’d need another set of pixies to hold them down and so on in an infinite regress. Thus my claim is a logical impossibility.

I thought you advocated Infinite regress.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I thought you advocated Infinite regress.

No, that's just another chocolate soldier in your army of straw men.

[torridon]

We know gravity exists because of what it does, though we do not fully understand how it works.
Similarly we know our souls exist because of what they do (give us freedom to control what we do, think or say), though we do not understand how they work.

Brains do that. 

Three billion years of gradual evolution producing the most complex thing we know of, but hey, no need for any of that, we've got souls to do the job, just like that, no need for any of those billions of neurons and synapses.

I don't think so 

[Sriram]

Evolution and souls are not mutually exclusive....  They can exist together.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Evolution and souls are not mutually exclusive....  They can exist together.

So could gravity and gravity pixies. That's not an argument fo "souls" though, and nor does it solve the infinite regress problems that AB's souls conjecture throws up. 

[Sriram]

Its not an argument for souls...I agree.... but you cannot argue that the process of evolution automatically precludes a soul....

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Its not an argument for souls...I agree.... but you cannot argue that the process of evolution automatically precludes a soul....

You cannot argue that any scientific theory automatically precludes any superstitious alternative. See Russell's teapot to explain why:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

[torridon]

Its not an argument for souls...I agree.... but you cannot argue that the process of evolution automatically precludes a soul....

The process of evolution concerns the spread of variant alleles through breeding populations.  I don't know what kind of mutation could ever produce something supernatural

[Alan Burns]

Brains do that. 

Three billion years of gradual evolution producing the most complex thing we know of, but hey, no need for any of that, we've got souls to do the job, just like that, no need for any of those billions of neurons and synapses.

I don't think so 

I do not need a degree in neurology to realise that the freedom we all enjoy as human beings cannot be determined from material reactions alone.

[Alan Burns]

The process of evolution concerns the spread of variant alleles through breeding populations.  I don't know what kind of mutation could ever produce something supernatural

Agreed 

[Alan Burns]

AB,

We know consciousness exists because of what it does, though we do not fully understand how it works.

Similarly we know gravity pixies exist exist because of what they do (pull objects down with invisible strings), though we do not understand how they work.

What would it take for you to realise that pixies hold stuff down with invisible strings?

Do you just not understand how analogies work, or are you so dishonest that you simply will not address why exactly the same reasoning you attempt to justify your claim “souls” should be denied to me to justify my claim “gravity pixies”?

What would it take for you to admit that this post was determined by you having conscious control of the thoughts needed to compose it?

[Outrider]

We know gravity exists because of what it does, though we do not fully understand how it works.

We can see the phenomenon of objects with mass appearing to attract each other, and we gave the phenomenon the name gravity. When we investigate the phenomenon, we find that objects with mass do not attract each other at all, something else is happening.

Similarly we know our souls exist because of what they do (give us freedom to control what we do, think or say), though we do not understand how they work.

We see the phenomenon of people appearing to have freedom, and you call that 'a soul'. When we investigate the phenomenon it does not appear that people have freedom of will at all...

What would it take for you to realise that you do have conscious control of your thoughts?

Evidence that it happens, a logical explanation for how it could happen, sufficient reason to overcome the various data that shows that it doesn't happen... perhaps even just something approaching a coherent argument?

O.

[Gordon]

I do not need a degree in neurology to realise that the freedom we all enjoy as human beings cannot be determined from material reactions alone.

Says who else, aside from you?

The problem you have, Alan, is that for you 'God' is an a priori given, so its intervention in our biology is, for you, also an a priori given. You have no argument or evidence to support your claim yet you have absolute certainty in your beliefs.

Most of the rest of us don't have your problem though: we are wary of claims of absolute certainty, and especially so where we can reasonably assume that not everything is yet known, so that 'don't know for sure' is a perfectly reasonable position to hold, but where there is at least some reliable knowledge to build upon then there can be arguments and there can be evidence even if these are best considered as being, in principle, provisional and subject to revision.
 

[Alan Burns]

Says who else, aside from you?

The problem you have, Alan, is that for you 'God' is an a priori given, so its intervention in our biology is, for you, also an a priori given. You have no argument or evidence to support your claim yet you have absolute certainty in your beliefs.

Most of the rest of us don't have your problem though: we are wary of claims of absolute certainty, and especially so where we can reasonably assume that not everything is yet known, so that 'don't know for sure' is a perfectly reasonable position to hold, but where there is at least some reliable knowledge to build upon then there can be arguments and there can be evidence even if these are best considered as being, in principle, provisional and subject to revision.

Your ability to reach a "'don't know for sure" position requires the conscious control which is denied by the materialist views on this forum.

My absolute certainty lies at the most fundamental point of my existence - my freedom to think.

[Alan Burns]

We see the phenomenon of people appearing to have freedom, and you call that 'a soul'. When we investigate the phenomenon it does not appear that people have freedom of will at all...

How would you initiate and process such an investigation if you did not have the freedom to consciously control and direct your own thoughts?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

What would it take for you to admit that this post was determined by you having conscious control of the thoughts needed to compose it?

What would it take for you to admit that you can only type your assertions because invisible pixies are holding you down with very thin strings?

Look, this is very simple: if you think you can rely on unsound reasoning to justify your claim “souls”, then you cannot deny to me exactly the same unsound reasoning to justify my claim “gravity pixies”.

If you had the first inkling of what sound reasoning actually looks like you’d know why this is. Why won’t you try at least to find out how sound reasoning works?