(August 5, 2012 at 5:03 pm)Epimethean Wrote: Why is it that so many monotheists come across as uneducated, unread boors?

Oh. Right.

As Stimbo pointed out they have not been booted up enough.

(August 5, 2012 at 4:24 pm)laurent Wrote:

Quote:You assume we are fooled.

Guys if we have no souls we are all fooled to be free and fooled to exist thats a fact.
who are you? your body? your brain? your consciousness? a list of all the events that happened to your body?

Quote:You assume there must be a point.

there should be a point for being conscious from an evolutionary point of view

You assume this concept of a "soul" is required for sentience. Evidently it is not.

I'm the combination of all of those things and more, no single part by itself would create the person I am today. Does that mean free will is an illusion and that we are simply the sum of all those parts? Probably, I can't possibly know with the information I have and neither can you.

"Should be"? This is a personal statement made purely from your set of values. It means nothing here.
The theory of evolution does not claim there is a point to consciousnous aside from the ability to make potentially life saving decisions and I would challenge you to demonstrate it does.

(August 5, 2012 at 4:24 pm)laurent Wrote: Guys if we have no souls we are all fooled to be free and fooled to exist thats a fact.

LOL, "if" he says...lol. Look, whether or not we have souls has exactly what to do with anything at all? "If" we don't, then the only thing that some of us -specifically- are being "fooled" about, is that they have souls, or that there is a thing called a soul. Nothing else changes.

Quote:who are you? your body? your brain? your consciousness? a list of all the events that happened to your body?

Your brain is a part of your body, not some distinct organism apart from it. Try "all of the above".

Quote:there should be a point for being conscious from an evolutionary point of view

There is. Lets simplify this test just a little bit. Lets say that the only thing that one has to do to survive is avoid being eaten. It is very useful (if the "goal" is to avoid being eaten) to be able to avoid whatever it is that's trying to eat you. One way to accomplish this is by being able to "see" the predator. However, merely intercepting light won't help; rocks intercept light all day long and when's the last time you saw them dodge anything? No, you have to be able to both intercept light, "interpret" the light, and react according to that interpretation. The more complex a system becomes the more useful it can be in a give set of circumstances (but, alternatively, the more prone it can be to failure or malfunction given another set of circumstances). The thing that you call "self" very much appears to be an extremely complicated series of interactions between your various bits of biological machinery. In fact, the only thing that "self" doesn't seem to be, is some sort of immaterial, magical, and eternal "soul".

I think you "should" have at least googled this before you assumed that there wasn't a point to consciousness, from an evolutionary standpoint.

(August 5, 2012 at 4:21 pm)Faith No More Wrote:

laurent Wrote:well you are right
but..
if i am fooled to exist, i dont exist
so who is the one being fooled?

I guess I don't understand what you're getting at. Forgive me for asking, but is English not your first language?

yes sorry for that im french

(August 5, 2012 at 4:29 pm)Stimbo Wrote: However, consider what would be the consequences of not being conscious. How could you possibly know?

What is the consequences of being conscious?
If i breath consciously the difference is that i choose how i breath
but who is this is I? it is my consciousness
we are fooled to exist by our consciousness
it is my consciousness which think that i exist as a brain/body/consciousness/soul
everything we make consciously we assume it is us
We assume other peoples and animals to be conscious but we dont know
because naturally we assume consciousness=freedom (of moving etc..)
Our consciousness is not aware of the why we do things, for exemple if i choose to move to the right i assume that i wanted to move to right but i dont know why i wanted to move to the right..
for theist the why is our soul, it is us the cause
now if we have no soul the why doesnt even exist we do things because of the laws of nature so i moved to the right because thats how our universe have evolved
so im being fooled to have this freedom, im am not the cause of my action
im being fooled to exist
then whats the point of my consciousness?

You are something separate from your "consciousness"? It's "fooling you"? I doubt it. Sounds to me like you're screwing with yourself.

"Whats the point?" This is a question that religion doesn't actually answer Luarent. You'll have to figure out what the point is for yourself.

You don't breathe consciously; you breathe autonomously. That means you don't have to think about it, it just happens instinctively. As a matter of fact, just think about yourself breathing for a moment. See how hard it's suddenly become? However, this is all a huge red herring intended to deflect attention away from the clear and direct question I asked you, which I shall repeat for your convenience.

Pretend that you have no consciousness, which the way you seem to be using the word means you have no awareness of anything much in the same manner as a brick. How would you possibly know about your condition?

(August 5, 2012 at 5:26 pm)laurent Wrote:

(August 5, 2012 at 4:21 pm)Faith No More Wrote: I guess I don't understand what you're getting at. Forgive me for asking, but is English not your first language?

yes sorry for that im french

(August 5, 2012 at 4:29 pm)Stimbo Wrote: However, consider what would be the consequences of not being conscious. How could you possibly know?

What is the consequences of being conscious?
If i breath consciously the difference is that i choose how i breath
but who is this is I? it is my consciousness
we are fooled to exist by our consciousness
it is my consciousness which think that i exist as a brain/body/consciousness/soul
everything we make consciously we assume it is us
We assume other peoples and animals to be conscious but we dont know
because naturally we assume consciousness=freedom (of moving etc..)
Our consciousness is not aware of the why we do things, for exemple if i choose to move to the right i assume that i wanted to move to right but i dont know why i wanted to move to the right..
for theist the why is our soul, it is us the cause
now if we have no soul the why doesnt even exist we do things because of the laws of nature so i moved to the right because thats how our universe have evolved
so im being fooled to have this freedom, im am not the cause of my action
im being fooled to exist
then whats the point of my consciousness?

Wow, thats a very long way of saying "Why are human beings whimsical?" isn't it?
Not to break your flow but you have no reason to think the "soul" has anything to do with that.

(August 5, 2012 at 5:32 pm)Stimbo Wrote: You don't breathe consciously; you breathe autonomously. That means you don't have to think about it, it just happens instinctively. As a matter of fact, just think about yourself breathing for a moment. See how hard it's suddenly become? However, this is all a huge red herring intended to deflect attention away from the clear and direct question I asked you, which I shall repeat for your convenience.

Pretend that you have no consciousness, which the way you seem to be using the word means you have no awareness of anything much in the same manner as a brick. How would you possibly know about your condition?

well i would not know about my condition but my body will know and my brain will work in autopilot much like i breath in autopilot
why my body need me to be conscious anyways if all i do while being conscious is to construct a fooled self based on the events that happen to my body who is moved by some mysterious ways by the evolution of our universe

The first part of that response demonstrates that you get it. Your consciousness is an emergent property of your being alive. One cell of your body is alive, but it has no consciousness. Nor has two, three, four of them. Only when you have a collection of enough specialised cells to form a brain and nervous system can you have consciousness. Your body doesn't need to be conscious to be alive; one popular fact is that you spend on average a third of your life unconscious, we call it being asleep. I have not the slightest idea what you would call it.

Neither do I have any idea what you mean by "construct a fooled self based on the events that happen to my body who is moved by some mysterious ways by the evolution of our universe." If you're trying in some peculiarly unique way to assert that evolution - a biological process with no direct connection to the Universe - is a foolish belief, I wish you'd come out with it and say so. That's a separate topic.

Evolution is a fact, by the way.