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@secularmerlin
What, in your opinion, does the term 'self' refer to? Is it the same thing you refer to as 'you' when you say 'You cannot choose your beliefs'?
free will
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@keithprosser
Any such reference us and only can be a place holder for a collection of experiences real or imagined whatever that collection of experiences actually turns out to be.What, in your opinion, does the term 'self' refer to? Is it the same thing you refer to as 'you' when you say 'You cannot choose your beliefs'?
In other words I don't know.
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@Stronn
The problem remains if our beliefs cannot be rationally chosen.
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@secularmerlin
What evidences your assertion that beliefs cannot be chosen and couldn't be chosen even if free will existed?
It makes no difference if you want to describe beliefs as "developed" rather than "installed" when you concede that beliefs are the sole product of mindless processes like physics and chemistry.
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@Fallaneze
What evidences your assertion that beliefs cannot be chosen and couldn't be chosen even if free will existed?
Only that I cannot simply choose to change my beliefs. Even if I can choose to have coffee instead of tea (which I am not convinced of) I cannot choose to be a theist. Can you choose to be an atheist? In the same way you can choose between shoes or sandals?
It makes no difference if you want to describe beliefs as "developed" rather than "installed" when you concede that beliefs are the sole product of mindless processes like physics and chemistry.
Reason appears to be an emergent quality of (some) processes of physics and chemistry. Until some reasoning agency can be demonstrated which is not associated with such processes the burden of proof for any claim which proposes such an agency has not been met.
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@secularmerlin
Placing greater value on the evidence that supports the claim and less value on the evidence against the claim. Everyone is biased to some extent because none of us are robots. Since our beliefs are determined by the underlying evidence, and since we have control over how much value the underlying evidence has, we can change our beliefs. It's a very unconventional view to believe that we cannot change our beliefs.
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@secularmerlin
Reason does not appear to be an emergent quality of physics and chemistry at all. The opposite is true. You are not seeing that if what you're saying is true, your statements are not rationally generated and therefore can never be based on good reasons.
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@Fallaneze
I have not claimed you cannot change your beliefs (though I am somewhat convinced that saying they were changed for you might be more acurrate) I am claiming that you do not choose to change them. You cannot simply choose to place more importance in any given evidence you simply are or are not compelled to belief by the evidence.
If I am incorrect please demonstrate by briefly converting to a few different religions for us and then perhaps choose to be an atheist before finally choosing to return to your current beliefs.
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@Fallaneze
Unless you can demonstrate some reasoning agency unassociated with these processes I'm not sure what you are talking about.Reason does not appear to be an emergent quality of physics and chemistry at all. The opposite is true.
You could argue thay reason simply does not exist and I suppose that is possible but in thay case there is simply no reason and your arguments do not matter.
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@secularmerlin
What evidences your claim that we cannot choose to place more importance on particular aspects of the underlying evidence in support of belief or disbelief?
I wouldn't need to change my beliefs on God, I'd need to change my belief on one thing. After reconsidering the same evidence for and against aliens, I now believe aliens exist.
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@secularmerlin
I would not need to demonstrate that a reasoning agency uncontrolled by physics and chemistry exists because your request would not be rational. You've agreed that neither chemistry nor physics is rational and you're presuming that these forces are fully responsible for formulating your thoughts and responses.
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@Fallaneze
You are using two definitions of rational here. You are trying to equizocate things behaving in a way that is predictable through reason to that process of recognition.
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@secularmerlin
@Fallaneze
AFAIK we don't know how the brain works - all we have are very plausible hypotheses. But I would accept that the brain does have the power to make inferences. That is to say brains naturally process information and draw a conclusion therefrom. Formal logic was invented as a model of what our brains do intuitively. That is to say a rule such as modus ponens (p implies q, p is true therefore q is true) is built into the way humans think.
Presumably we evolved brains that work that way because in the world we live in, that rule works. Critters that have an inbuilt grasp of that principle have an advantage over critters that don't.
But our brains are there to help us survive, not for the sake of doing logic for its own sake. What our brains do that formal logic does not relect very well is our ility to work with imperfect information. In formal logic, everything is true or false and there are no uncertainties or unknown factors. Thar rarely applies in the real world. So our brains draw conclusions based on probabilities, often when even the probabilities are unknown. We may well infer an enemy is present when the obective probability is low, because it pays to have false positives rather than false negatives.
So our brains implement a form of logic (or reasoning) that is distinctly 'fuzzy' and is only loosely approximated by formal logic. It may well be that a caveman will infer the existence of a sabre tooth tiger when a 'formal analysis' would not - but the cost of getting it wrong means that the less 'rational' inference is the better one to make.
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@keithprosser
My thinking is that either we will find out that we have freewill or we will never know. This is because if you have no freewill it just be ones freewill of the gaps. Even if we map the physics brain and how it functions there will always be those who claim there is another layer undetectable with our current knowledge (whatever that constitutes at the time) which magically allows for freewill.
I personally think it will be the latter rather than the former.
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@secularmerlin
I think you are wrong. If science does eventually completely understand the brain then find no location for freewill then that idea has been officially debunked. Souls don't exist and spirituality has yet to be proven. With this in mind there can be a case where science can find an answer for the non-existence of freewill because if they know everything about the brain and still can't find freewill then that is no ground in science and as far as I am concern I couldn't give a rat's a$$ about what a book which has a lesser standard to truth says.
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@TheRealNihilist
I am also unable to maintain such a belief in the absence of sufficient evidence but the discussion will continue in all likelihood because of faith. Faith does not require proof, which ironically is exactly what makes it a poor pathway to truth.
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@secularmerlin
Or the only way to truth... it depends what the truth is.which ironically is exactly what makes it[faith] a poor pathway to truth.
I'm starting to think about how 'levels of description' come into this issue. Maybe things like free will and consciousness
are concepts appropriate for a high-level, functional description of brain operation...
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@secularmerlin
Yes but without appealing to the unknown they have less ground to stand on. It would make them look more irrational which they already are.Faith does not require proof, which ironically is exactly what makes it a poor pathway to truth.
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@TheRealNihilist
There will always be those who appeal to the unknown and there will always be the unknown.
There will always be a god of the gaps argument and there will always be a freewill from the gaps argument. They are not rational arguments now so clearly looking irrational is not a sufficient deterrent to believing in things which cannot be demonstrated or even things that are logically incoherent.
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@secularmerlin
In either case your last post is completely besides the point. Lucky for you this is not an indication of your debating prowess since you are not really debating here.Again I urge you to go find that proclaiming web site you were looking for when you accidentally stumbled onto us.
If that is what I am doing, you are doing no better. Except I am willing to talk, and you would rather be unchallenged.
It should be obvious that this isn't possible to debate when I you are speaking to those who don't really debate, but destroy all debate through their invincible ignorance and appeals to selective epistemological nihilist.
Debate might actually occur if your idea of what debate means wasn't perverse to begin with.
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@Mopac
Mopac I feel I have you every reasonable chance to have a reasonable discussion but you seem uninterested. Take your last sentence for example.
Debate might actually occur if your idea of what debate means wasn't perverse to begin with.
My idea of a debate. Indeed. You specifically said debate is unchristian. Either you were in error about that or you find all forms of debate perverse.
If all debate is perverse then your sentence was meaningless. You could as easily just said Debate might actually occur if debate wasn't perverse. Do you not see the logical breakdown in that sentence?
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@secularmerlin
You have already stated that if we know about the brain we would have an answer. I say we would know both answers. That is all that really matters. People can then move on to believing God is an alien but at that point they have very little standing to their arguments and can be seen as irrational as they are.There will always be those who appeal to the unknown and there will always be the unknown.
There will always be a god of the gaps argument and there will always be a freewill from the gaps argument.
Saying that there will be doesn't mean they even have ground to stand upon. When science completely knows about the brain they can't create a good argument for freewill. It will be everyone who isn't irrational job to make sure indoctrination doesn't occur so theism along with other irrational beliefs are removed.
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@TheRealNihilist
Flat earthers, climate change deniers and ID apologists don't appear to have much ground to stand on. Doesn't seem to dampen their enthusiasm. Quite the reverse actually. In my experience the more you point out the logical flaws in their arguments the more rabidly they argue.
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@secularmerlin
Doesn't seem to dampen their enthusiasm. Quite the reverse actually. In my experience the more you point out the logical flaws in their arguments the more rabidly they argue.
I think you missed this part
"make sure indoctrination doesn't occur so theism along with other irrational beliefs are removed."
I'll also add giving people critical thinking skills.
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@TheRealNihilist
I mean sure while we are wishing but surely you recognize that this is an unlikely scenario particularly in the near future.
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@secularmerlin
All I see is you attacking me and not debating then subject matter.
Excuse me if pointing this out means I have 3 fingers pointing back at me.
Denying free will is a harmful and dangerous belief. It is a dehumanizing belief even.
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@secularmerlin
Yes.I mean sure while we are wishing but surely you recognize that this is an unlikely scenario particularly in the near future.
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@Mopac
Are you trying to debate? I thought you were just proclaiming again.
Have you decided reversed your position that debate is unchristian or your position that behaving in an unchristian manner disqualifies you from being identified as a christian?
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@TheRealNihilist
Ok then.
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@TheRealNihilist
Soul = biologic. Simple not difficult to grasp.Souls don't exist and spirituality has yet to be proven.
Four kinds of spirit;
1} metaphysical-1 { spirit-1 } spirit-of-intent { free will } is predetermined by cause and effects of chemistry vai quantum mechanics,
2} Spirit-2 { physical/energy/Obsereved Time aka quanta } fermions, bosons and aggregate collection thereof, ex photons, electrons, molecules, biologics, planets, etc,
3} Spirit-3, gravity ( ) as a positive shaped geodesic of Space,
4} Spirit-4, dark energy )( as negative shaped geodesic of Space.
.....( t )( t )....i,e, Space-Time-Space
Mechanisms of brain function include mind-over-matter ex placebo effect occurs 10% of time in some lab experiments.
Personal experience recently happen this way. Ive had a pinched nerve somewhere causing generalize leg aches, with sometimes very specific areas of pain as well as itching on top of foot sometimes, numbness thigh and in lower leg and in foot, as well as tingling in lower leg and less often occasional burning sensation of toes for 2 and half month.
Ive been to three chiropractors and done various stretches etc for pyformis { but muscles } syndrome, Ice hot baths, naproxin etc and nothing seems to relieve ---except staying off standing on that leg-- and the symptons got worse last few days. So much so that Ive felt need to limp last two days.
Then yesterday I was tasked with the training of a new person and this requires lost of walking. So I had done my second dexatrim green tea, green coffeee, probitotics etc type pill and began the 1 and half hour training. Near the end of the fast tracked training I told new person, that, I had stopped limping and hadnte noticed any pain in a while.
He stated that my mind was elsewhere focused on passing on the training info to him. He was correct.
Whats the ole saying, if your toe is hurting then hit your thumb with a hammer and you wont notice your toe pain any more.
So after he left my pain and limping began soon after if not immediately. I told him before he left that maybe it was the speed pill I had taken that relieved the pain and the feeling for a need to limp.
My mother, with her Seagrams 7 in one hand and Winston ciggerates in the other, she did her best to practice Christian Science { mind-over-matter } and pass on those moral teachings to myself and my sister.