You've already been PWNED on this, dumbass. I think you're about ready for the asshat avatar.

Paisley;

Explain your hypothesis. Right now this is a naked assertion, even assuming the positive claim is true (we possess 'free will'). How do you derive free will as a prediction of your 'people have souls' idea? How can we test this prediction?

 

Details, please. Explain your mechanism, predictions and how might test said predictions.

Eh?  Err... Good evening, I hope you are well.

Imho you have a bit of connecting to do, e.g. Free Will ==> Soul.

Noting that I figure I have free will within constraints, ...

and I sleep.  Sigh, I recall that when I was a teen dog I even 'SINNED' in my sleep, quite involuntarily.  Sinned so hard a couple times it woke me up!

tq

 

 

 

Free will implies that choices are not determined by prior material causes. Assuming that it is true (and you assume it in practice, even if you deny it in theory), then you have to account for it by an immaterial cause.  I believe such an account would be inconsistent with atheistic materialism. 

Technically, there is no mechanism and it is unpredictable by definition. That's the whole point! Furthermore, I don't have to prove that I have free will. My first-person experience provides me with ample evidence that I do. You may argue that it is an illusion. However, if that is the tack you wish to pursue, then the onus is upon you to prove that my will is completely predetermined. Good luck! 

Another usless thread by Paisley, you have nothing to back up your claim other than a statement that A) you cannot prove that free will = soul, B) you haven't proven the soul exists at all, so please for the sake of this thread, make more than a stupid claim of ignorance and wishfull thinking.

Well, Paisley, here's the thing: You still can't actually prove free will. As I've said, we do tend to act under the presupposition that we have it, but if we don't have it, then we were never free to not act under that presupposition to begin with, now were we? Just because we may exist in a state of denial doesn't make it accurate. And if a thing cannot be demonstrated to exist, then it cannot be evidence for the existence of something else.

So. Make your case for the actual existence of free will, not the reassuring presupposition of free will. Then we can move on to the next step.

And do keep in mind before you decide to complain at me about how I'm not accepting the reality of free will despite the inference that can be drawn from our presupposition, that Kevin and I just went around the same merry-go-round about not accepting the certainty of the non-existence of God despite the ability to infer it from the compounding lack of evidence for God. So I'm not holding to you any higher standard here.

In fact, quite the opposite. I fully do expect you to attempt to appeal to a lower standard of proof.

Good eve again and oops.  I did not mean to imply your words were mine, my apologies. 

Serendipity doo dah tho, since I would have missed asking you what my emotional experiences have to do with free will?  It is an interesting q imho, btw.

tq

 

So, if my dog goes out the door and runs down the street he is exercising free will. He may go left he may go right he's not programmed or predisposed to a certain action. So I suppose he therefore has a soul according to your statement.

 

Could you please expound on this topic? It's a lovely label, but my cat has feelings, and based upon its actions, would appear to be aware of them. Moreover, based on the cat's observable behavior, he appears to be able to react to my 'feelings', my emotional state, and so is aware of it.

But, if there is no free will, 'why' wouldn't matter, now would it? After all, if there is no free will, then experiencing regret is just as inevitable as the action that causes them, isn't it?

Agreed. All life has feeling awareness. Spirit experiences itself through all sentient beings.

Then how is this evidence for the existence of a soul, a quintessential component of being that endures beyond death? Do amoeba have souls? Do plants? Trees that have been struck by an axe, or near a tree that has been, have demonstrated physiological reactions to the presence of such an item (increased sap flow, chemical stress indicators in the tissue, etc).

The evidence is "free will," not "feeling awareness" (conscious-awareness is another issue). If free will is true (which you believe to be true in practice, even if you deny it in theory), then it does not have a physical cause by definition.  

 

Except that you've defined the soul as 'That which has "feeling awareness".'

Thus, if something has feeling awareness, then it has a soul. Further, you've said that "All life has feeling awareness."

Thus, all life has souls. So, again, I ask you: Do amoeba have souls? Do plants? So far, your statements would necessitate saying that they do.

And if free will is the proof that we have souls, then it follows that anything with a soul must have free will.

Do amoeba have free will? Do trees have free will?

At what point does 'stimulus-response' give way to free will?

 

Edit to add:

 

You've still yet to demonstrate proof of free will. Just because we presuppose free will to exist, on the basis that if it doesn't, we couldn't tell anyway, does not mean it does. Being still unproven, it cannot be the evidence for anything else.

Actually, it's not an argument at all.  It's another one of your meaningless one-liners which you use to start  long,  meandering and ultimately  useless threads.

I surmise that several dozen posts will be spent by others trying to get you to provide a lucid definition of "soul".   With non-sequiturs, haphazard quotes and outright contradictions, you -- through several dozen posts -- will fail to provide said definition.  Eventually you will be driven into the corner by your own nonsense, whereupon you will duck out of the thread, only to open another bullshit thread and let the nonsense spawn anew.  One need only glance over your previous threads to see this well-established precedent.

Citing your first non-effort ('That which has "feeling awareness."'), I'd say we're well on our way to nowhere, yet again.  

 

 

 

 

The usual rubbish of 'this is the way I feel so its evidence'

The way an individual feels about something is simply not evidence of anything, you may feel your wife loves you but that isnt evidence of it (she may hate your guts), in fact you may not even have a wife.

 

The minute a person talks about how they 'feel' I just switch of they have lost any argument by  rejecting reason

 

LOL.

I'll do that for a lark, I guess.

I'm assuming you understand what a "reason" for doing something is, yes? Let's say a reason is a proposition that either increases or decreases our inclination to do something. For example, I may be thinking about whether or not to send my hard earned money to Uganda. I may have reasons for it (it would help the poor), and reasons against (I want to buy a stereo with that money instead).

Now, eventually I will do one of those two. I will perform an "action". I will either send money to Uganda, or I will not.

To get from reasons to action, I had to cross a bit of a gap, though. Notice that if I explain why I sent money to Uganda, I cite the reasons behind the decision. But I do not cite the reasons as if they forced me to send the money. I feel like I could have done otherwise in spite of the reasons, and certainly we are inclined to think so, else it would be difficult to explain why people do different things when they are looking at all the same reasons. So, it seems as if at some point, I crossed the gap between reasons and action based on something apart from the reasons. This thing that led me to cross the gap is called a choice. And the faculty of choice is called a will. And a person who believes that the behavior of the will is not entirely determined or random would say that the will is free. This is where we get the concept of free will.

So how do I prove that we actually have this faculty? See the argument I made earlier in this thread. The one with all the formal logic in it.

This is a major premise of your argument Presupp, and it's not made particularly explicit, which is technically a fallacy.

Now, I assume that by "reason is not designed" you're alluding to Intelligent Design, right? By reason being unreliable you're alluding to a basic argument of presupposition from the problem of induction, Yes? You know most here aren't going to agree to either of those, don't you?

But in any case, regardless of who would or wouldn't agree to reason entailing extra-human design or there even being a necessary POI, what in the name is that bit about free will on the end!? it makes zero sense to claim that free will follows as the alternative to an intelligent immutable designer. How do you arrive at that?

 

This is a false dichotomy. Reason is a system which deals in determination or randomness and is reliable as such, however, that does not necessarily entail that determination or randomness are the only reliable transaction models of a natural system. There must be a fallacy of composition in there somewhere that you've confused reason for naturalism, they aren't the same thing. Naturalism employs reason but it essentially extends beyond it.

 

Actually the bible says man has a soul and a spirit. Which are you referring to the breath of life (soul) or the immortal (spirit) from Hebrews 4:12? If by soul you mean the breath of life there is no evidence to support the belief that god breathes life into anyone at birth. The body is not animated by a soul but by the mind. If the mind dies so too does the body. Science cannot confirm the existence of a soul so yet again incredible claims require incredible evidence.

 

Actually, I am not basing my argument on the Bible. So your response is moot.

Only if you redefine the terms to match your conclusion.

check this: http://atheism.about.com/b/2003/11/20/misunderstanding-materialism.htm

Maybe he knew you would become an atheist lol.

I've had several first-person experiences talking to my dog Allah in English and he talked back to me, in English. So this prooves that dogs are smarter than theists.

You didn't - you redefined materialism. Don't you read past bylines?.

You also haven' done anything about proving free will exists beyond assertion. Nothing quite like using one inadequately defines term (free will) to justify another one (soul)