Searching for GOD...

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

But yet at the same time you argue (correctly) that at a fundamental level your car thief cannot be judged for his actions. This in what I mean by the dissonance between acting as if we have “true” agency, while at the same time understanding that at a more profound level that cannot be.   

I don’t see that at all. At the level of reality for which we have the most robust evidence and reasoning, yes AB is acting determinatively as are we all. At a functionally useful level of reality though, we can discuss and argue as if we had agency, and moreover find these exchanges to be meaningful. Moreover, just because AB is lost in a world of poor reasoning and misunderstanding just now does not mean that necessarily some new (or repeated) input won’t one day cause his neurons to reach a different, and (apparent) reason-justified conclusion.   

You’d need to clarify that. I’m merely saying that I (and you, and everyone else) can find discourse instinctively, intuitively, emotionally meaningful while at the same time some of us at least can grasp that the same could be said of a character in the SIMS game given enough algorithmic complexity. So what though?   

  If on other subject someone argued a position that made other statements logically inconsistent with that pisition, you would object. If there is no free will, Alan is not being obdurate. Yet you hold both positions.

[Alan Burns]

But the argument I make for them is identical to the argument you make for “god”, “souls” etc. Why should an argument be sound for a conclusion you like but not sound for a different conclusion you don’t like?

The evidence for God is truly overwhelming.
Pixies and Leprechauns offer ample evidence of your conscious efforts to try to ridicule any argument for God's existence.

[Nearly Sane]

The evidence for God is truly overwhelming.
Pixies and Leprechauns offer ample evidence of your conscious efforts to try to ridicule any argument for God's existence.

Oh no it isn't

[Alan Burns]

  If on other subject someone argued a position that made other statements logically inconsistent with that pisition, you would object. If there is no free will, Alan is not being obdurate. Yet you hold both positions.

He holds both positions because he has invented two levels of reality to allow him to hold both positions.

[Nearly Sane]

He holds both positions because he has invented two levels of reality to allow him to hold both positions.

Well given you've done the same, and made up some shite about quantum, then perhaps you should consider whether you are in a good position to comment.

[Alan Burns]

A “concept” isn’t evidence. To be evidence, you’d need to demonstrate that the concept is true.

All I need to demonstrate that there must be a source for all that exists is to show that something exists.

[Alan Burns]

Well given you've done the same, and made up some shite about quantum, then perhaps you should consider whether you are in a good position to comment.

I did not invent the quantum level of reality - it is known to exist and it is known to comprise events with no known cause.

[Nearly Sane]

I did not invent the quantum level of reality - it is known to exist and it is known to comprise events with no known cause.

You've invented that it's got anything to with 'god'. And you've invented that 'no known cause' means a cause that you have no evidence for.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The evidence for God is truly overwhelming.

If you believe that be the case why won’t you ever produce any of this supposed evidence?

Pixies and Leprechauns offer ample evidence of your conscious efforts to try to ridicule any argument for God's existence.

No they don’t. The “ridicule” is actually an argumentum ad absurdum – when I show that your own argument to produce the conclusion only one of us finds to be ridiculous ("souls") can equally produce a conclusion we both find to be ridiculous ("gravity pixies") that tells you that you have a bad argument.

I’ll even set out your argument for you:

1. There are gaps in the current materialist explanations for consciousness/gravity

2. Therefore a materialist explanation for consciousness/gravity is impossible

3. I refuse to justify my claim 2 with an argument, and when pressed will only attempt to shift the burden of proof by demanding that you tell me how consciousness/gravity works. Any explanation you give me I will however tell you "beggars belief", but I won't tell you why

4. Because a materialist explanations for consciousness/gravity is "impossible", that gives me licence to insert the faith claim explanation souls/gravity pixies

5. There is no evidence at all for souls/gravity pixies but I apply a different standard of evidence to these claims from the standard I apply to the materialist explanations for consciousness/gravity

6. Souls/gravity pixies are logical impossibilities because each would necessitate an infinite regress – souls would need other souls to do their thinking etc, gravity pixies would need other gravity pixies to hold them down etc. I don’t care about that though because both are magic

7. Therefore souls/gravity pixies are real     

Do you finally get it now? If you think an unsound argument nonetheless legitimately justifies your faith claim “souls”, you cannot arbitrarily just deny to me exactly the same unsound argument to justify my claim “gravity pixies”. What you can do though is to abandon the unsound argument entirely, and instead either:

1. Give up on the claim “souls”; or

2. Find another argument that doesn’t work equally for the conclusion "souls/gravity pixies”.

You choose.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

All I need to demonstrate that there must be a source for all that exists is to show that something exists.

So finally demonstrate it then.

[Nearly Sane]

All I need to demonstrate that there must be a source for all that exists is to show that something exists.

So there's a source for your god?

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

If on other subject someone argued a position that made other statements logically inconsistent with that pisition, you would object. If there is no free will, Alan is not being obdurate. Yet you hold both positions.

I would object if the contradictory statements were in the same reality paradigm. I’m quite content though to function at the lived experience level as if I had “free” will while simultaneously understanding that it’s illusory. After all, what choice do I have?   

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

I would object if the contradictory statements were in the same reality paradigm. I’m quite content though to function at the lived experience level as if I had “free” will while simultaneously understanding that it’s illusory. After all, what choice do I have?   

They are in the 'same reality paradigm'.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

They are in the 'same reality paradigm'.

"Actually" and "as if" are in different reality paradigms. Johnny Weissmuller was an actor; he was also Tarzan - different reality paradigms.   

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

"Actually" and "as if" are in different reality paradigms. Johnny Weissmuller was an actor; he was also Tarzan - different reality paradigms.

Bollocks, Weissmuller was an actor who played Tarzan.

[Maeght]

The evidence for God is truly overwhelming.

No it's not.

[Outrider]

The evidence for God is truly overwhelming.

Then how come as we learn more about reality, fewer and fewer people are being overwhelmed by it? How come, in the areas where we have more people who have learnt more about how reality works, we have fewer people being overwhelmed by it than we do in areas where fewer people are being taught about reality?

It's almost like the evidence for gods is weak, and only convincing to people who are not encouraged to actually examine it in any meaningful way.

Pixies and Leprechauns offer ample evidence of your conscious efforts to try to ridicule any argument for God's existence.

And your manifest lack of any attempt at an actual rebuttal offers ongoing evidence that you don't actually have an argument, you have a belief and tenacity.

All I need to demonstrate that there must be a source for all that exists is to show that something exists.

No. We have a universe, and we have evidence that it existed in some form before time began - for something therefore to have 'caused' it, makes no sense, causation requires a timeframe within which the actions can occur. Again you have failed at the simplest of attempts, but credit where credit is due, it's actually an attempt at an argument.

O.

[Alan Burns]

.... it's impossible to have a coherent discussion much beyond that it appears that free will as it's usually thought of makes no sense.

Not sure what version of free will you consider to make no sense - perhaps it is the straw man version, total freedom with no constraints.

The commonly accepted version of human free will is that which was illustrated by professor John Lennox in the clip I gave a few posts back.  It is simply the freedom to choose between two or more feasible alternatives which exist in your conscious awareness.  This makes sense to me as it reflects  the reality I exist in.

[Alan Burns]

So there's a source for your god?

God is the ultimate source of all that exists.
There has to be an ultimate source - otherwise there would be infinite regress over what is the source of the source of the source .....

[Maeght]

God is the ultimate source of all that exists.
There has to be an ultimate source - otherwise there would be infinite regress over what is the source of the source of the source .....

What is the source of your God?

[Nearly Sane]

God is the ultimate source of all that exists.
There has to be an ultimate source - otherwise there would be infinite regress over what is the source of the source of the source .....

That's called special pleading. You're usung an argument that everything needs a source which you abandon and declare something not to need a source. That then means that your initial argument is rendered worthless making it collapse into a pile of contradictory nonsense. It's the logical version of the Indian rope trick.

[Nearly Sane]

Not sure what version of free will you consider to make no sense - perhaps it is the straw man version, total freedom with no constraints.

The commonly accepted version of human free will is that which was illustrated by professor John Lennox in the clip I gave a few posts back.  It is simply the freedom to choose between two or more feasible alternatives which exist in your conscious awareness.  This makes sense to me as it reflects  the reality I exist in.

No, it's the one you've used throughout here which posits thete to be a decision without a reason.

[Alan Burns]

No, it's the one you've used throughout here which posits thete to be a decision without a reason.

I have never claimed human will is without reason.
The reason for our will emanates from the conscious awareness of our human soul, not from unavoidable material reactions.

[Nearly Sane]

I have never claimed human will is without reason.
The reason for our will emanates from the conscious awareness of our human soul, not from unavoidable material reactions.

If it's based on a reason, it's determined. If it's not determined, it's not based on a reason.

[Alan Burns]

That's called special pleading. You're usung an argument that everything needs a source which you abandon and declare something not to need a source. That then means that your initial argument is rendered worthless making it collapse into a pile of contradictory nonsense. It's the logical version of the Indian rope trick.

So what do you suppose was the source which brought our universe into existence?
Or do you honestly believe it just popped into existence from nothing?
Or do you believe in the Stephen Hawkins theory that the law of gravity somehow brought it into existence - but then what was the source of the law of gravity?
There needs to be an ultimate eternal source from which everything emanates - nothing else makes sense.