Universalism

[Sebastian Toe]

And the mind-soul interaction of an infant can't work until the physical engine of the human brain can attain sufficient functionality to interact with the soul.

And the mind-body interaction of an animal can't work to he same level as a human because the physical engine of the animal is not as capable as that of a human. Thus it cannot attain sufficient functionality to interact with its soul in the same way as a human. Some get a wee bit close, like apes and dolphin and elephants though.

[Gordon]

What I am saying is that you can't use "emergence" to prove the human soul does not exist, because any emergence is entirely dependent on the physical properties of the material from which the emergence comes.  So unless you can define Conscious Awareness in physical terms, you can't just assume that it is an emergent property.

It is a manifestation of our biology though: biologically inactive brains aren't consciously aware of anything.

Can you not come to terms with the fact that it is not possible to define conscious awareness as a physical property?  Any entity of awareness needs to perceive, not just react to, the content of many brain cells, and as I have already indicated, perception is achieved from outside, not within.

This is just you falling into the fallacy of composition, yet again.

[Alan Burns]

biologically inactive brains aren't consciously aware of anything.

And biological activity alone does not define conscious awareness.
Awareness itself does not need activity, it just perceives it.

[Shaker]

What I am saying is that you can't use "emergence" to prove the human soul does not exist

Clearly you're in charge of the negative proof fallacy while Hope spends a little time on the naughty step.

[Gordon]

And biological activity alone does not define conscious awareness.

However you define conscious awareness it is dependant on functioning biology: without said functioning biology you are neither conscious nor aware.

Awareness does not need activity.

Then trying asking a dead person for directions to the nearest Tesco and let me know how you got on.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Gordon,

Then trying asking a dead person for directions to the nearest Tesco and let me know how you got on.

No silly. As I understand it, those who would assert "soul" also think that when its host dies it settles its bill for the mini fridge and checks out and, um, floats around for a bit until the next person needing its services is born and then, you know, magics its way into that baby.

Or something.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

What I am saying is that you can't use "emergence" to prove the human soul does not exist...

This is painful. Do you not think that it would help you if you grasped at least the barest bones of a logically coherent line of argument? No-one says that the evidence for an explanation "disproves" conjectures about a different one. Lots of people have seen babies born, but that doesn't disprove the conjecture that they're just brainwashed to think that by the stork that actually flies them through the window.

Your "soul" conjecture is equivalent here to the stork conjecture. There's strong evidence for consciousness being an emergent property of the physical stuff of which we're made, just as there's strong evidence of babies coming from women's tums. Neither evidence though disproves alternative conjectures even though there's no evidence for them whatever, especially when you also assert for them magical properties. 

In short, you've just fallen back into the negative proof fallacy. As it's been explained to you many time now, my question is: why?

[Sebastian Toe]

Clearly you're in charge of the negative proof fallacy while Hope spends a little time on the naughty step.

Looks like Alan is in charge permanently?!

[Shaker]

Looks like Alan is in charge permanently?!

So I now see!

[bluehillside Retd.]

Seb,

Looks like Alan is in charge permanently?!

Alan has the honorary title of Permanent Caretaker Emeritus of the NPF, whereas Hope is the NPF Chief Operational Officer. Alan Burns is making a late bid for a position on the NPF Board, but he lacks the credentials of at least 1,000 usages before he can be considered.

[Sebastian Toe]

Seb,

Alan has the honorary title of Permanent Caretaker Emeritus of the NPF, whereas Hope is the NPF Chief Operational Officer. Alan Burns is making a late bid for a position on the NPF Board, but he lacks the credentials of at least 1,000 usages before he can be considered.

Hope has 'voluntarily' stepped down!

[Alan Burns]

Then trying asking a dead person for directions to the nearest Tesco and let me know how you got on.

As I said, awareness does not require physical activity as you may well find out when your physical body ceases to function.  The body is just a biological machine with replaceable parts - every molecule gets replaced many times. The only thing which can give continuity is the little man at the controls - You.

So what happens to this little man at the controls when the body dies?  His awareness of this physical universe may no longer be there because he has lost the window into it, but the awareness which is You may have a new window into something else.  We shall see.

[torridon]

As I said, awareness does not require physical activity as you may well find out when your physical body ceases to function.  The body is just a biological machine with replaceable parts - every molecule gets replaced many times. The only thing which can give continuity is the little man at the controls - You.

So when the antelope become aware of the lion creeping up on it, it is the little antelope at the controls that is becoming aware.

So what happens to this little man at the controls when the body dies?  His awareness of this physical universe may no longer be there because he has lost the window into it, but the awareness which is You may have a new window into something else.  We shall see.

No evidence for that though; just make-believe with no justification 

[Alan Burns]

So when the antelope become aware of the lion creeping up on it, it is the little antelope at the controls that is becoming aware.

It simply reacts in accordance with its biological programming - no little antelope at the controls because the controls do not need to be consciously overridden.

[Alan Burns]

No evidence for that though; just make-believe with no justification 

There is abundant evidence in God's inspired scriptures and in His revelations through Jesus, and in the lives of many saints, and in your own God given ability to contemplate the meaning of your own existence.

[Gordon]

There is abundant evidence in God's inspired scriptures and in His revelations through Jesus, and in the lives of many saints, and in your own God given ability to contemplate the meaning of your own existence.

As Torridon point out: no evidence, and just you asserting what you'd like to be true using (in this case) a combination of fallacious arguments from authority, tradition and your personal incredulity.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Gordon,

As Torridon point out: no evidence, and just you asserting what you'd like to be true using (in this case) a combination of fallacious arguments from authority, tradition and your personal incredulity.

It's also the fallacy of reification: he just asserts there to be a "God" who's "inspired" and made some "revelations" and then he calls those assertions evidence. He seems to be entirely oblivious to the problem he's being asked to address, namely finding some evidence for these assertions being true in the first place.

That he keeps getting the discussion about consciousness and free will flat wrong isn't helping him, but it's not his central problem.

[Alan Burns]

As Torridon point out: no evidence, and just you asserting what you'd like to be true using (in this case) a combination of fallacious arguments from authority, tradition and your personal incredulity.

Gordon,
You appear to be somewhat selective in the posts you respond to because, I suspect, that you look for things you deem to be fallacious arguments.  But you, along with others, seem to ignore or overlook some of the deeper points I make - such as the ultimate cause of me typing these keys, or how the content of many brain cells get perceived by the single entity which is you, or what can provide the continuity in You, when all your parts get replaced, or the question of what is in control - is it You or the uncontrolled deterministic rules of science?  You may well try to write all these off as personal incredulity, but this does not make them go away, and there is still the big question of what is driving my personal incredulity?  Is it just down to natural uncontrollable causes, or is it the free spirit which is Me?

[torridon]

It simply reacts in accordance with its biological programming - no little antelope at the controls because the controls do not need to be consciously overridden.

He said, doing his accustomed hop, skip and jump.  Clearly it is untenable that humans are the only creatures with eyes that can actually see with them, so now it is over to overriding natural instincts rather than awareness as your gap of the moment.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Is it just down to natural uncontrollable causes, or is it the free spirit which is Me?

The first one, only we have the sensation of control because that's what consciousness does.

If though you want to argue for a "free spirit" and a "Me" that's outwith the stuff of which you're made then you have all your work ahead of you. What are these things? Where do they reside? What evidence is there for them? How would you test that evidence? etc.

I understand that you'd like these things to be real because they underpin your religious beliefs, which clearly mean a lot to you. It'd be painful therefore to realise that they're imaginary - too painful I suspect for you ever to concede the point. The fact remains though that all you have here is faith, and faith moreover that often contradicts the evidence we do have. Now that's fine for you if you find it persuasive, but it gives you nothing whatever in the locker that's persuasive for anyone else.

And that's a problem because you opened up here by proselytising and evangelising on the basis we now know only of your faith.     

[torridon]

But you, along with others, seem to ignore or overlook some of the deeper points I make - such as the ultimate cause of me typing these keys, or how the content of many brain cells get perceived by the single entity which is you, or what can provide the continuity in You, when all your parts get replaced, or the question of what is in control - is it You or the uncontrolled deterministic rules of science?  You may well try to write all these off as personal incredulity, but this does not make them go away, and there is still the big question of what is driving my personal incredulity?  Is it just down to natural uncontrollable causes, or is it the free spirit which is Me?

Your incredulity is not an argument and it is not evidence.

I'm sure someone around here must have pointed that out to you before now.

Many of the findings of science are counter-intuitive, or they are at first; but that does not constitute a licence for indulging make-believe as a preference. What we can do, is make the effort to get our heads round it, and thus come to a deeper and more authentic understanding eventually.

[Shaker]

I understand that you'd like these things to be real because they underpin your religious beliefs, which clearly mean a lot to you. It'd be painful therefore to realise that they're imaginary - too painful I suspect for you ever to concede the point. The fact remains though that all you have here is faith, and faith moreover that often contradicts the evidence we do have. Now that's fine for you if you find it persuasive, but it gives you nothing whatever in the locker that's persuasive for anyone else.

And that's a problem because you opened up here by proselytising and evangelising on the basis we now know only of your faith.     

BIB - Something I've said many a time here before. Alan is so deeply and intensely invested emotionally in his (needless to say, entirely unevidenced) belief system that he can't even concede that it's only faith, or that he uses, repeatedly, utterly fallacious, invalid, illegitimate arguments (#139 being the most recent instance). To do that might open an initially tiny crack of critical rational scepticism, and who knows where that might ultimately lead? I've long thought that Alan is one of those sorts of people who, if they lose their emotional life support system, would have their entire world come crashing down around their ears, so it has to be fortified and defended at all costs, even to the extent of ignoring being told that he's deploying bad arguments and invalid logic, time after time after time.

This is why the flow of - well, I was going to say information, except that it isn't information, is it? Let's call it the flow of discussion - with Alan is one way only: everything out (i.e. assertion and fallacy), but absolutely nothing in. Sad, really.

[Shaker]

Gordon,
You appear to be somewhat selective in the posts you respond to

I've heard it all now.

But you, along with others, seem to ignore or overlook some of the deeper points I make

Absolutely none of which reach any deeper than personal belief hawked around as fact, and bad arguments.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

...you look for things you deem to be fallacious arguments.  But you, along with others, seem to ignore or overlook some of the deeper points I make...

You try this "you deem" line a lot. It's not that someone deems a logically false argument to be logically false - it is logically false. If I said "2+2=5", you explained that I was wrong about that and I replied, "well if you just deem me to be wrong" etc you'd look askance right? Well that's effectively what you do when you make a logically false argument and then try to dismiss the rebuttal of it. 

And that's why you have no "deeper points" to make. Once you've relied on a mistake for your thinking, any points you hope to build on that mistake are ipso facto null.

[Shaker]

AB, You try this "you deem" line a lot.

It's an attempt to make a logical fallacy not-a-logical-fallacy and nothing more than somebody's opinion, I guess.