Searching for GOD...

[Gordon]

Similarly you have the conscious freedom to choose how, when and where to satisfy your likes.

But I don't get to 'choose' the underlying 'likes' that I like: all I can do indulge them where possible. Similarly I don't 'choose' to hate mayonnaise: I just do, at a primal level.

[Stranger]

There are no materialistic explanations for conscious self awareness.

FALLACY: Argument from ignorance.

You can try as you might to define a single entity of awareness from discrete material reactions, but such effort will be doomed to failure because awareness requires perception of material reactions - not the reactions alone.

The bottom line is that you need more than material reactions to perceive material reactions.  You need the human soul which is not of this material universe but can perceive and interact with this universe through the window of the human mind.

FALLACY: Argument by assertion.

I've given up already! I concede that religious faith destroys reasoning ability and can reduce a PhD Mensa member to the level of a dim school kid. Can you stop now, please?

[Stranger]

They just aren't plausible because they fail to reflect the reality we all live in.

The meaningless gibberish of "conscious control of our thought process", that you refuse to even explain?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

There are no materialistic explanations for conscious self awareness.

Yes there are. Stop lying about that. Which (if any) of them will turn out to be correct is currently unknown however. That though tells you nothing whatsoever about whether any possible materialistic explanation would be "totally impossible", which is your claim.   

The term, "emergent property" is just a meaningless label which offers no explanation for what comprises conscious awareness is or how it works.

Of course “emergent property” isn’t just a meaningless label. It’s a well-understood and widely documented phenomenon. 

You can try as you might to define a single entity of awareness from discrete material reactions, but such effort will be doomed to failure because awareness requires perception of material reactions - not the reactions alone.

Your ignorance of the nature of emergent properties is letting you down again here. You can try to “define” a single entity of water from lots of hydrogen and oxygen atoms too, but you’ll never find it.

The bottom line is that you need more than material reactions to perceive material reactions.

That’s not the “bottom line" at all – it’s just an un-argued and un-evidenced blind faith claim.   

You need the human soul which is not of this material universe but can perceive and interact with this universe through the window of the human mind.

“It’s magic innit” isn’t an explanation for anything. It's also all you have.

[torridon]

There are no materialistic explanations for conscious self awareness.
The term, "emergent property" is just a meaningless label which offers no explanation for what comprises conscious awareness is or how it works.
You can try as you might to define a single entity of awareness from discrete material reactions, but such effort will be doomed to failure because awareness requires perception of material reactions - not the reactions alone.

The bottom line is that you need more than material reactions to perceive material reactions.  You need the human soul which is not of this material universe but can perceive and interact with this universe through the window of the human mind.

Well your bottom line is obviously wrong if you insist that only humans enjoy perception.  This is a fundamental function of mammalian brains and bird brains, it having evolved many millions of years before humans evolved. Any bird without perceptual senses would end up getting eaten pretty quickly; likewise any cat lacking perception would soon starve to death.  There is no evidence to support your claim.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

They just aren't plausible because they fail to reflect the reality we all live in.

No, they “fail to reflect” a colloquial but logically and scientifically unsupportable version of reality that’s a useful fiction at best. Your fingers not actually touching the keys in front of you also “fails to reflect the reality we all live in”. Does that mean the science of repellent forces must be wrong too?

Once again, your wilful ignorance is letting you down.     

[Alan Burns]

Well your bottom line is obviously wrong if you insist that only humans enjoy perception.  This is a fundamental function of mammalian brains and bird brains, it having evolved many millions of years before humans evolved. Any bird without perceptual senses would end up getting eaten pretty quickly; likewise any cat lacking perception would soon starve to death.  There is no evidence to support your claim.

You are confusing perception with instinctive reaction.
Perception does not require reaction - it just invokes conscious awareness.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

No, they “fail to reflect” a colloquial but logically and scientifically unsupportable version of reality that’s a useful fiction at best. Your fingers not actually touching the keys in front of you also “fails to reflect the reality we all live in”. Does that mean the science of repellent forces must be wrong too?

Once again, your wilful ignorance is letting you down.     

It may not be the physical touching of material elements but it is the force field which is an integral part of the material element which invokes the sense of touch.

All I am saying on this "searching for God" thread in the Christian topic is that scientific knowledge offers no barrier for those genuinely searching to discovering the reality that God exists and that God is the ultimate source of everything that exists and that God has made Himself known in the person of Jesus Christ and that we have all been given the miraculous gift of free will in order to freely accept Jesus as out Lord and Saviour and inherit eternal salvation for our human soul.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB,

Yes there are. Stop lying about that. Which (if any) of them will turn out to be correct is currently unknown however. That though tells you nothing whatsoever about whether any possible materialistic explanation would be "totally impossible", which is your claim.   

Of course “emergent property” isn’t just a meaningless label. It’s a well-understood and widely documented phenomenon. 

Your ignorance of the nature of emergent properties is letting you down again here. You can try to “define” a single entity of water from lots of hydrogen and oxygen atoms too, but you’ll never find it.

That’s not the “bottom line" at all – it’s just an un-argued and un-evidenced blind faith claim.   

“It’s magic innit” isn’t an explanation for anything. It's also all you have.

The dictionary definition of emergent is the process of coming into being, therefore AN emergent must be something that has come into being.
It is in that sense a new thing and something that is not displayed in that from which it has come into being from.
There is a subtle difference between there being a new entity and a definition of emergence where the emergent entity is just the sum total of components.

One view of emergence would have say consciousness as a new thing and another view as merely enough intelligence put together.

[torridon]

You are confusing perception with instinctive reaction.
Perception does not require reaction - it just invokes conscious awareness.

You are the one who is confused.  Perception evolved in the Cambrian and is now widely conserved across all taxa in the animal kingdom.  Humans enjoy perception because we too are species of the animal kingdom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception

[Gordon]

You are confusing perception with instinctive reaction.
Perception does not require reaction - it just invokes conscious awareness.

Don't be silly: perception, mental or physical, is a form of reaction to 'something' (be that mental or physical).

[ekim]

All I am saying on this "searching for God" thread in the Christian topic is that scientific knowledge offers no barrier for those genuinely searching to discovering the reality that God exists and that God is the ultimate source of everything that exists and that God has made Himself known in the person of Jesus Christ and that we have all been given the miraculous gift of free will in order to freely accept Jesus as out Lord and Saviour and inherit eternal salvation for our human soul.

... and in addition to that belief there is there is the Via Negativa belief e.g.
St Thomas Aquinas ' We cannot know what God is but rather what he is not.'
Meister Eckhart   'There is no knowing what God is.  Something we do know, namely, what God is not.'

[Alan Burns]

Don't be silly: perception, mental or physical, is a form of reaction to 'something' (be that mental or physical).

Conscious perception requires a single entity of awareness to perceive the many discrete reactions taking place at any one time in the human brain.
In a purely biological machine there is no need for conscious perception or a single entity of awareness - the biological machine simply reacts in a programmed way driven by the many discrete material reactions going on.

Conscious perception is not a reaction - it is awareness of many reactions.

[Outrider]

Conscious perception requires a single entity of awareness to perceive the many discrete reactions taking place at any one time in the human brain.

Does it? Where are you getting that from? Consciousness, to my mind, is the accumulation of all those discrete reactions taking place, it's a product of brain activity en masse, not some sort of detached 'overseer'.

In a purely biological machine there is no need for conscious perception or a single entity of awareness - the biological machine simply reacts in a programmed way driven by the many discrete material reactions going on.

I'm not sure anyone said that consciousness was necessary, just that it existed.

Conscious perception is not a reaction - it is awareness of many reactions.

That, by definition, makes it a reaction - if you didn't have the initial reactions, you wouldn't have anything to be conscious of, surely?

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Does it? Where are you getting that from? Consciousness, to my mind, is the accumulation of all those discrete reactions taking place, it's a product of brain activity en masse, not some sort of detached 'overseer'.

Do tell.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It may not be the physical touching of material elements but it is the force field which is an integral part of the material element which invokes the sense of touch.

Once again, you’ve missed the point. You seem to think that “the reality we all experience” is also a reliable way to define that reality. I merely explained to you that it isn’t – there are many examples of colloquially understood realities that are functionally useful, but are also contradicted by evidence. Objects not actually touching is just one example of that. There are many others, including your (mis)understanding of “free” will.       

All I am saying on this "searching for God" thread in the Christian topic is that scientific knowledge offers no barrier for those genuinely searching to discovering the reality that God exists and that God is the ultimate source of everything that exists and that God has made Himself known in the person of Jesus Christ and that we have all been given the miraculous gift of free will in order to freely accept Jesus as out Lord and Saviour and inherit eternal salvation for our human soul.

All you are saying is the begging the question fallacy. Again.

If you want to argue that people are “genuinely searching to discovering the reality that God exists…” etc then you need to demonstrate your premise “God” first, not just assume it as axiomatic.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

The dictionary definition of emergent is the process of coming into being, therefore AN emergent must be something that has come into being.
It is in that sense a new thing and something that is not displayed in that from which it has come into being from.
There is a subtle difference between there being a new entity and a definition of emergence where the emergent entity is just the sum total of components.

One view of emergence would have say consciousness as a new thing and another view as merely enough intelligence put together.

No. Think of emergence being a whole that’s greater than (and qualitatively different from) the sum of its parts. Water vs hydrogen and oxygen atoms for example.

AB just asserts consciousness to require “a single point of awareness” or some such with no supporting reasoning or evidence for that claim at all. He then compounds his initial mistake by telling us that, no matter how much you picked though a brain you’d never find this supposed “single point”. He has no grasp at all of what emergence actually entails and refuses to listen when it’s explained to him, dismissing it instead as “just a label”. Presumably he has to maintain this wilful ignorance so as not to disturb his a priori religious beliefs, no matter how unedifying witnessing him doing it is for rational people.           

[Gordon]

Conscious perception requires a single entity of awareness to perceive the many discrete reactions taking place at any one time in the human brain.

Conscious perception requires a single entity of awareness brain to perceive the many discrete reactions taking place at any one time in the human brain

FIFY

In a purely biological machine there is no need for conscious perception or a single entity of awareness - the biological machine simply reacts in a programmed way driven by the many discrete material reactions going on.

This 'single entity of awareness' is another of your meaningless phrases - it's just biology at work.

Conscious perception is not a reaction - it is awareness of many reactions.

Therefore it is a reaction.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Conscious perception requires a single entity of awareness to perceive the many discrete reactions taking place at any one time in the human brain.

Why on earth do you think that?

[Alan Burns]

Conscious perception requires a single entity of awareness brain to perceive the many discrete reactions taking place at any one time in the human brain

FIFY

This 'single entity of awareness' is another of your meaningless phrases - it's just biology at work.

Therefore it is a reaction.

Material reactions do not perceive other reactions - they generate other material reactions.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Why on earth do you think that?

Because I thought about it, and came to a logical conclusion.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Because I thought about it, and came to a logical conclusion.

Argument free assertion isn't logical conclusion. Where's the logic?

[Alan Burns]

Vlad,

No. Think of emergence being a whole that’s greater than (and qualitatively different from) the sum of its parts. Water vs hydrogen and oxygen atoms for example.

AB just asserts consciousness to require “a single point of awareness” or some such with no supporting reasoning or evidence for that claim at all. He then compounds his initial mistake by telling us that, no matter how much you picked though a brain you’d never find this supposed “single point”. He has no grasp at all of what emergence actually entails and refuses to listen when it’s explained to him, dismissing it instead as “just a label”. Presumably he has to maintain this wilful ignorance so as not to disturb his a priori religious beliefs, no matter how unedifying witnessing him doing it is for rational people.         

All examples quoted of emergent properties can be understood and defined by observable functionality.  This is not the case with conscious awareness.  There is no understandable mechanism or functionality which shows how conscious awareness works.  Trying to label it as an emergent property offers no explanation for what comprises our conscious awareness or how it works.  The problem you have is that conscious awareness requires a single recipient for the information which exists in the material brain, but there is no material definition or mechanism for this single recipient - because it is your human soul.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

All examples quoted of emergent properties can be understood and defined by observable functionality.  This is not the case with conscious awareness.  There is no understandable mechanism or functionality which shows how conscious awareness works.

Actually there are various hypotheses about that, but in any case there’s no reason to think that consciousness isn’t another example of the same phenomenon. You however assert with no reasoning or evidence at all for support that consciousness cannot be an emergent property too. All you’re being asked to do is to justify your argument-free claim.   

Trying to label it as an emergent property offers no explanation for what comprises our conscious awareness or how it works.

What it does is to propose a model seen everywhere we look in nature. There’s no reason that you’ve been able to provide to indicate that the explanation for consciousness should be any different from the same generalised phenomenon of emergence.   

The problem you have is that conscious awareness requires a single recipient for the information which exists in the material brain,…

No, the problem you have is that you keep making that assertion but never justify it with reasons. What’s stopping you?
 

…but there is no material definition or mechanism for this single recipient -…

And nor does there need to be if it’s an emergent property. 

… because it is your human soul.

Mindless, evidence- and argument-free blind faith claim.

Try again.   

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Argument free assertion isn't logical conclusion. Where's the logic?

I am a single entity of perception.  There is only one "me".