₦airaland Forum

DeepSight:
Just yet another detour/ stop-over. I am inspired by my own analogy of a song.
Is a song a physical thing?

Not at all, otherwise you would have to show me its atoms / molecules! A song can only be represented or conveyed by physical things. It can be conveyed by musical instruments, it can be written down in the language of musical notes, it can be written down in multiple technical and human languages even, it can be recorded onto physical instruments - a tape recorder, a compact disc, a computer drive, in all of these forms it will appear as informative code of different kinds: smash and destroy all of these things a million times over, and yet you would not have touched or harmed the song. The song remains completely immaterial - even when it is sung by a person, what you hear are actually informative codes which float along sound waves and reach you ears top be transmitted to your brain. If you like grab those sound waves, squash and distort them in any way imaginable, you still will not have touched the song. The song is completely immaterial, a child of the mind and often of the soul as well, you cannot account for the existence of the song or even the nature of the song using physical reference points alone, this just remains impossible.

This is something to dwell deeply upon!

So LordReed when you talk about "seeing" images on the computer, that is something we can liken to the analogy of the song - none of the "images" you are seeing are in fact the thoughts which are being expressed, if you like edit or delete them, the thoughts will not have been destroyed, what you are seeing are merely physical designs which form a code which you have been educated to recognize and interpret in your mind. Therefore you are not seeing immaterial things. It is another absurdity to say that you can see an immaterial thing. Your list of absurdities is growing and somewhere in this thread I will compile them, and when I do, I trust that they will probably provoke you to claim that you never said any such things - whereas you did.

Your definition of immaterial must be different from mine. Immaterial means not made of matter it is not the same as unperceivable or else the song which yourself acknowledge is immaterial would not be able to be heard by you. If you agree can hear an immaterial song why are you struggling with the idea that you can see the immaterial image on a screen?

DeepSight:
We agree that light is what conveys images to our eyes of course. This surely does not mean that light conveys images of immaterial things as well to our eyes? Please think about what you are saying or inferring carefully, lest it becomes a problem when I repeat it down the road, and you suddenly declare that that is not what you are saying.

Does light transmit images of immaterial things to our eyes?

This particular immaterial thing can be seen, it is not all immaterial things.

Immaterial is not the same as unperceivable.

DeepSight:
Agreed, and I am in the process of doing so. Nevertheless it is a bit of a laborious process - as I have already explained to LordReed previously - I admit holding the short end of the stick because what I am trying to convey is intangible and experiential. Therefore my task is very hard indeed, and to be approached with great subtlety.



I am shortly going to describe what I mean by "spirit."
However I warn that "evidence" as used by the scientist may not be strictly what I will be providing, because it is scarcely possible to prove the spiritual with recourse to physical science alone. Physical science is limited to the physical. Thus my method will be a motley suffusion of philosophical logic and the experiential.

A method which of course has no hope of appealing to the determined materialist scientist, but which, I hope, may appeal to the man of common reason, simple sense and inward wakefulness.

I am hoping that along with your definition and attribute layout of spirit, you'll also include how we can know spirit exists.

EDIT: To be clear I mean the tool by which we may investigate such a thing, whatever that tool may be, physical or non-physical.

DeepSight:
Going again with the analogy of the song which I used above, the computer is not spawning immaterial things before my eyes. That would be an illogicality because the eye cannot see immaterial things. Or can it? If so, how are they immaterial? Or do you now wish to make another leap and say that immaterial things are physically visible?

What the computer is spawning are informative codes which represent the immaterial thoughts in our minds. Those thoughts are not created by the computer but by our minds.

The image you are seeing on the screen is not material, the light conveying that image is what is material not the image itself. These are 2 distinct things.

DeepSight:
I am happy to take away the understanding that you say that material things may spawn immaterial things. So long as this is your established position, I am good with that, I will dissect it later and raise the very grave problems I see with it. It is good enough for now that we are clear with one another.

Having said that, I wish to correct an error, made by writing too fast and quite at odds with my thoughts -



This is not my position. I do not say that immaterial results derive from material things. Just to be clear, and avoid a bump in the road ahead. Please note.

With this, we can safely sum up another interpretation of our disagreement thus:

- - - > You say that material things may spawn immaterial things.
- - - > I say that they cannot.

I trust we are clear here, as we move ahead.

Next, my description of spirit.

I am not sure how you can maintain the position that material things cannot spawn immaterial things when you are using a device that is spawning immaterial things right before your eyes. Well let's see how you do it.

DeepSight:
Sigh. This one -

I said I won't answer that part until you provide definition of your ghost in the machine.

DeepSight:
And yet, another crucial point emerges here:



Note: immaterial component - not immaterial result! - This is my position - And this is very key.
Because what you are in fact saying is actually something that emerges most illogical, absurd and preposterous: to wit: that material things may spawn immaterial things.

In saying that -

1. Mind arises from matter
2. Mind itself is not strictly material

You make the leap of suggesting that the material may spawn the immaterial.
Is this a position you are happy to stand by?

Is computer software material? It is not yet it is generated by a computer a material thing. The image on a screen is not material yet it is generated by a material thing. You should acknowledge you have a problem with how you view these things, the conundrum is not mine.

DeepSight:
To my mind, the real problem we are having here is your refusal to accept that the software is one of those parts - you are sticking with the hardware (matter) alone. The software is the immaterial component you have left out of your equation which is the reason I have problems with it.

Actually that problem is yours which you insist on foisting on me. I have said mind is not material and yet is part of being so tell me who is the one with the conundrum if not you since you refuse to acknowledge what I am saying but insist that your interpretation of my position is correct? Now you trying to saddle me with this "The software is the immaterial component you have left out of your equation" when I have repeatedly said mind is not material so how could I have left it out of the equation. Its not my conundrum, its yours but you can't see it.

DeepSight:
Rather than saying this, you should undertake my "spot the difference" task.
I am about to provide my description of spirit. Your affirmation of the mighty oath came too late last night, hence the delay. Remember that it is a mighty oath I shall hold you to.

Spot what difference?

Steep:
Yeah challenges doesn't display because one is a Christian but being a Christian gives purpose and meaning to life.

Purpose and meaning can be derived from any position you have affinity to. Even terrorists will tell you they have purpose and meaning. I am an atheist and I have purpose and meaning. There is no one position that holds the exclusive ownership of purpose and meaning.

DeepSight:
I have serious problems with this, but let me start by asking if it is an inference which you deny or repudiate. Because that would be eminently bizarre given your position thus far.

For my part I am not even sure that it is an inference so much as a direct summation of what you have conveyed. For you have said that the mind arises from the activity and interactions of matter - this is the root issue of this thread. How is this different from saying that the prior actions of matter spawn mind and all its actions?

Tell me, I mean, just conduct a "spot the difference" for me.

I have very long experience with people suddenly becoming uncomfortable once a mirror is held up to their own statements - once their very own statements are reflected back to them - but this must be one of the strangest cases, because what I have given you, as I have said, is not so much an inference of anything, as a direct summation of what you have said. To infer something is to derive another fact from a specific fact or statement. I have not here derived another fact from what you have said, I have merely directly summed up what you have said.

But I will touch upon this better in my next post.

LoL. Are you suddenly forgetting that this back and forth start primarily because I told you that a deterministic interpretation of methodological naturalism is not my position? Or are you forgetting that I have asked you more than 3 times to provide evidence for your ghost in the machine and you have yet to provide any? If anyone is uncomfortable here it might be you since you seem to be having selective amnesia all of a sudden. LoLz.

Jackanda1:
ignore it? Lols. All i want now is to have my Jesus back. There is no peace in atheism

That may be your experience but you should refrain from generalising. I am an atheist and have been one for going to 4 years and I honestly have more peace than when I believed. Has it been all good? No. Has it been all bad? No. The same challenges I had as a believer are still the same ones I have now: how to take care of my family, how to balance my wants and needs, how to relate with people and the environment, etc. Your challenges don't go away because you became a Christian neither will they disappear if you became an atheist.

Jackanda1:
Good morning.
I will be very brief with my story.

I was a staunch Christian before; born again, holyspirit filled and an evangelist. I wasn't a weak or a baby christian, God bares witness.

In 2014, my frequent visit to this site and following the founder caused me to loose faith. Of course I did not denounce religion in a day. It took time.

It came to a point that I began to question things, doubt all the experience i had as a Christian. To me they were all hallucinations , product of imagination and mental chemistry . In summary, I became a militant atheist.

Until 2019,strange, weird and sinister things started happening to me which i would not describe here, I don't want to start a debate. So i had enough sence to know that this things weren't scientific. It was then I started going to churches and meeting pastors, when they prayed for me, this things will end overtime another kind of problem begins. So I have to constantly seek for prayers.

If you are an atheist reading this, I want you to know that the world is not just physical, there is more.

OK, my problem is, I have been trying to get back to God, attending church frequently, praying, reading the bible but everything seems dead to me. I have said the prayer of salvation a thousand time but i just cannot have faith or believe again.

Have I committed the unpardonable sin, is it impossible to get back to God again according to Hebrews 6:4-8?

Can you share what these strange experiences were and why you think it is proof of spiritual phenomenon?

triplechoice:
Then you should have pointed this out. Because you committed a fallacy, when you insisted that your analogy was apt when it was not.

And I never concluded your car analogy was bad because of what powers the car , "blood" but by comparing the functions of what both car models are capable of .That's the difference

I actually did a triple take trying to understand your final summission. If you point is not to show that driverless cars are not like human being why use it in the first place. But you still ended up making the comparison after

A driverless car is not really driverless in the true sense of it. A human programmer who from time to time updates the mapping
software which controls the car is by proxy the one still in control.

Cars cannot drive themselves if they are not made to do so by humans. That is it

This is what I said:

The purpose of the analogy is not to show that driverless cars are like humans but rather to illustrate the point that humans, like driverless cars, are an integrated whole, there is no "driver" or ghost in the machine instead there are systems working together to produce autonomy.

I agree, I should have made it clearer that it was just an analogy. I guess I just assumed that by saying this is like that, it would be taken that I was making an analogous comparison, not saying they are the same.

budaatum:
That, my Lord, is because a human being is driving it. The programming done by the human is for all intent and purpose, driving.

Think of it this way. I programmed the oven to roast my chicken. Self roasting oven, my Lord?

Well that's going past the purpose of the analogy which is just to show that the individual human being is a single unit made of parts seen and unseen.

budaatum:
I honestly do not get my Lord's position apart from what you say it is, but if it is that "all that mind does is a product of the prior action of neurons", I will be surprised.

The material you presented in this post was received by my eyes which are cells. The message in the material was brought to my mind through my neurons, and I am controlling my cells by sending messages through my neurons to the cells in my hands to type this response to you this very moment, which I am checking for errors with my eyes that are made up of cells and with my mind which is also made up of cells all under my very conscious control and instruction, so claiming I can not "consciously control cells and neurons", sounds odd to me. If my cells were to respond without my me controlling them, well.....

I am of course assuming agreement that my hands are cells and my eyes are cells too, as is my brain, three parts of my body at the least involved in this response, and I am assuming neurons are what are carrying the instructions to the cells that are helping me type out my response.

What say you, my Lord?

My position is not "all that mind does is a product of the prior action of neurons", if it was I wouldn't say the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The mind is more than just neurons firing that much should be clear to even the casual observer.

budaatum:
My Lord, please show where you said the above. In fact, let me go look for your position, because I don't quite get it.

I never did, its an inference he is making. I am yet to respond to that part of his submissions because it seems I am not communicating properly because anytime I attempt to clarify my position he just seems to ignore it and insist that that is what my position infers.

DeepSight:
No worries, in short order, certainly before I turn in for the night. However I require you to swear a mighty oath. The mighty oath is that you will not seize upon my definition / description of "spirit" to avoid answering the posers I have already laid out, and those yet to come.

I won't do that.

triplechoice:
I am afraid your analogy is not apt.

Even though driverless cars can operate as if a human being is driving it, they can't, at this moment, operate exactly as human driven ones.

The reason is due to the attendant problems or limitations which comes with such car models..

For instance, during extreme weather conditions, heavy rain fall, fog, snow etc, when visibility is very low, the cameras fitted into driverless cars to enable it observe road markings as it moves from point A to B becomes virtually useless. During such situations , it takes direct human intervention to be able ro navigate the driverless car to it's destination.


Also,, a driverless car unlike a human driven one, can't decide the correct decision to make between two bad choices.

When a car driven by a human being is suddenly faced with some school kids who have strayed into the road carelessly, the person behind the steering wheel can decide correctly to swerve away from hitting the human obstacle to an electric pole by the road side in order to save lives. The damage to the car can be taken of later.

But a driverless car faced with the same situation would obviously not act the same way as a human driven one. It would not know what to prioritize between the human obstacle and the electric pole. Avoiding the school children would only happen by chance .

There are other limitations too.

But I am sure you can see from what I already explained that there can be know comparison between the two car models and for this I don't think it is necessary any more to answer the question you asked at the end of your post.

It's an analogy not a perfect correlation of function. It's almost as though you'd say it's a bad analogy because cars don't have blood. The purpose of the analogy is not to show that driverless cars are like humans but rather to illustrate the point that humans, like driverless cars, are an integrated whole, there is no "driver" or ghost in the machine instead there are systems working together to produce autonomy.

Myer:
You get my train of thought completely.
Yet these words are held verbatim as God's words and inspirations.

That way the illusion has more "power". It doesn't work for unstoppable things of nature, that's why they can't pray and stop a hurricane but they can pray and find their keys.

jesusjnr2020:
Well not the best start but like falling while learning to ride a bicycle, so you can learn from the experience.

So keep learning from her, and it's only a matter of time before you get cured of your highest form of stupidity. #atheism

Nah, she'll out grow her foolishness but I don't have much hope for you. LoLz

Myer:
Our very own NL Mummy G.O.
I'm sure he has a celebrity crush on her. Lets hope he's not even masturbating to her videos right now. Loool

LoL! I am not sure he even needs to masturbate, just hearing her say hellfire makes him cum. Bwahahaha!

Myer:
Ouch. That's so below the belt.
The foolishness is magnified when you realise he actually believed it would happen.
I gave up on thiat one a long time ago.

The force and grip of religion is heavy on that one. Yet he's supposed to be in liberty and not bondage in Christ.

To me he is like the class clown, always good for a laugh and hilarity.

jesusjnr2020:
Lol!

That's why I said you should shut up and learn from your 3 year old daughter. She's not that foolish.

Well in that we agree. She is not so foolish as to believe night won't come. LoL!

jesusjnr2020:
You're suffering from the highest form of stupidity and ignorance called atheism, so no matter how foolish and ignorant you think your little child is, it can never compete with yours. So you could be cured by that little girl if only you let her teach you the truth, but of course you foolishly think you know better than her. Hehehehe.

Jesus didn't have any child, yet many better parents who had much more experience training children than you, learnt from Him about children because they believed He knew better than them.

So humbly yourself and learn what you don't know about the little child man, and stop priding in your foolishness.

Jesus would have made a very terrible parent since he believes to teach a person you need to have armed robbers rob a person to teach them a lesson (according to you anyway). LMFAO!

Your foolishness is unparalleled, Mr The Sun Will Not Set. LMFAO!

elated177:
How do you mean?

I gave you the weather forecast for my city but you rejected it. LoL

elated177:
Don't go there. I am not falling for that.

How is the weather in city? Is all I asked.

Wait so you'd rather hear my subjective assessment rather than a verifiable source? LMAO!

elated177:
Reed, pulling philosophy and logic from all corners. Ehehehehe! Let us see where this is headed. Carefully following.

You are welcome. Feel free to contribute your thoughts on the matter.

elated177:
I can see what you and your friends are doing on your thread.

Feel free to chip in, it's an open discussion.

elated177:
But that has passed now.

Ok, how is the weather this moment?

I can see what you and your friends are doing on your thread.

elated177:
Ehehehehe! Obere ihe. That is even one of the least of the things my Daddy in the sky, YHVH Almighty, does through me, his saint, servant and messenger, Elated177.

Tell me how the weather in your city is tonight.

Here's the forecast for this week. Tell your sky daddy to make it rain the whole week instead.

elated177:
But that has passed now.

Ok, how is the weather this moment?

Already answered. What do you mean already passed? You are not going to ask your magic sky daddy to regulate the weather again? Ask so we can begin to measure the temperature and compare it to the weather pattern. You say you can regulate the weather via your magic sky daddy, good chance to show you are correct.

jesusjnr2020:
You are a parent but you know nothing about little children.

You think they are foolish and ignorant just as most adults do, including the disciples of Jesus, but if you come to know them as Jesus did, you'd realize that you adults are the ones who are actually ignorant and foolish, and need to humble yourself and learn from them as Jesus said.

So respect that little child. She's not your mate. She could also save your life.

LMFAO! OMFD! The conceit is just like a shìt load of diarrhoea. When you have taken care of a child for 10+ years come and tell me again how they are not foolish and ignorant. For now you just being delusional as usual. Bwahahahahaha!