Blasphemy or Biblical?

[_Buffalo]

so, obviously your position is the one which concludes that individuality, agency, personal responsibility, and consciousness are simply complex systems of chemical induced illusions, with some sort biological imperative - for which you have no evidence for, but surely must exist....got it (check).

No, my position is that individuality, agency, personal responsibility, and consciousness are all naturally inherent in normal human beings. They're not illusions. They're real, and they run on a chemical and biological engine. I posted the evidence, but I don't blame you for not understanding it. You still haven't gone beyond magical thinking and arguments from ignorance. :)

But if you really think that physical matter can't have consciousness without magical help, then you're in the wrong religion. The spirit is just another form of physical matter in Mormon theology. It's turtles all the way down.

[_subgenius]

No, my position is that individuality, agency, personal responsibility, and consciousness are all naturally inherent in normal human beings. They're not illusions.

"naturally inherent"? redundant much?
being natural and/or inherent does not mean it is not an "illusion"...even more so, it does not free those concepts from the physical (or natural) laws which govern chemical and electric reactions...which means, even if it were not an "illusion" (which in this context it clearly must be, since it is the product of chemistry), then it is bound to these natural laws...and the ability to "choose otherwise" does not exist...in theory or application. Your position does not allow for any person to choose otherwise....ever.

They're real, and they run on a chemical and biological engine. I posted the evidence, but I don't blame you for not understanding it. You still haven't gone beyond magical thinking and arguments from ignorance. :)

your evidence was only about how "thoughts" are measured...and from your own evidence we read:
"We have no idea how consciousness emerges from the physical activity of the brain and we do not know whether consciousness can emerge from non-biological systems, such as computers..."
and
"Hence it remains unclear why any of it is conscious."

So, your "evidence", and consequently your rebuttal, is "we have no idea"......not surprising at all.

But if you really think that physical matter can't have consciousness without magical help, then you're in the wrong religion. The spirit is just another form of physical matter in Mormon theology. It's turtles all the way down.

i never claimed that "consciousness" existed with or without magical help...my position is about how the ability to "choose otherwise" is impossible if consciousness is a product of the natural law. All things physical are, without question, adherents to the universal laws of nature.....gravity is without magic and acts upon objects without regard for consciousness or animation. So, if the brain is simply an organization of biochemical reactions and neuro-electric impulses then each of those actions are no more capable of breaking their natural order than gravity is....gravity is incapable of "choosing otherwise" and thus neither would your brain be able to. Just because the system is more complicated does not render it capable of "magic".....as you would try to have us believe.
infinite regression indeed.
i believe you may be in over your head, my friend.

[_gdemetz]

It's those little "intelligences" in Mormon theology.

[_Drifting]

So, your "evidence", and consequently your rebuttal, is "we have no idea"......not surprising at all.

Hmmm...

Sounds like the Elder Holland defence, The Hinckley defence, the Church PR defence...Bet you accepted it from those guys...

[_gdemetz]

Drifting, I can relate to you about this. It also frustrates me that many in the church try to gloss over what prior prophets have plainly taught.

[_Drifting]

Drifting, I can relate to you about this. It also frustrates me that many in the church try to gloss over what prior prophets have plainly taught.

But that's doctrine.
Current Prophets words Trump past Prophets words.

Anti-Mormon's discount a Prophets words when the facts don't support them.
Mormon's discount a Prophets words when he's dead.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find anything that Brigham Young, as Prophet, taught or preached that is accepted as doctrine today.

[_Buffalo]

"naturally inherent"? redundant much?
being natural and/or inherent does not mean it is not an "illusion"...even more so, it does not free those concepts from the physical (or natural) laws which govern chemical and electric reactions...which means, even if it were not an "illusion" (which in this context it clearly must be, since it is the product of chemistry), then it is bound to these natural laws...and the ability to "choose otherwise" does not exist...in theory or application. Your position does not allow for any person to choose otherwise....ever.

I note with interest that when you have no substance to contribute you start talking about my phrasing.

You still need to demonstrate how chemistry in the brain makes consciousness and choice an illusion. You have yet to do more than assert that this is so.

They're real, and they run on a chemical and biological engine. I posted the evidence, but I don't blame you for not understanding it. You still haven't gone beyond magical thinking and arguments from ignorance. :)

your evidence was only about how "thoughts" are measured...and from your own evidence we read:
"We have no idea how consciousness emerges from the physical activity of the brain and we do not know whether consciousness can emerge from non-biological systems, such as computers..."
and
"Hence it remains unclear why any of it is conscious."

So, your "evidence", and consequently your rebuttal, is "we have no idea"......not surprising at all.

We don't have all the answers, therefore magic. Is that right?

But if you really think that physical matter can't have consciousness without magical help, then you're in the wrong religion. The spirit is just another form of physical matter in Mormon theology. It's turtles all the way down.

i never claimed that "consciousness" existed with or without magical help...my position is about how the ability to "choose otherwise" is impossible if consciousness is a product of the natural law. All things physical are, without question, adherents to the universal laws of nature.....gravity is without magic and acts upon objects without regard for consciousness or animation. So, if the brain is simply an organization of biochemical reactions and neuro-electric impulses then each of those actions are no more capable of breaking their natural order than gravity is....gravity is incapable of "choosing otherwise" and thus neither would your brain be able to. Just because the system is more complicated does not render it capable of "magic".....as you would try to have us believe.
infinite regression indeed.
i believe you may be in over your head, my friend.

Again, you need to do more than assert that choice is an illusion sans invisible magical interference. Consciousness resides in the brain. The brain is a complex, messy, organic computer, running on chemical reactions. The structure of the brain is such that choice and consciousness are a natural product of cerebral function, just as strength is a natural product of muscle function. You don't need to posit a magical source for the abstract concept of strength any more than you need to do so for the concept of thought. Both arise from the structures that produce them. We can see varying degrees of consciousness in lesser animals, and its all dependent upon brain structure and operation.

And again, Mormonism is a very physical religion. Bodies are physical, and spirit is another type of physical. You must abandon the concept of agency in Mormonism, if you believe what you're saying.

[_gdemetz]

There is no magic or twinkling to it. It's those little intelligences in the matter that have free agency. Only an infinitesimal fraction of one percent were born as the controlling intelligences of the spirit children of Heavenly Father. Most of the rest, which make up what is know as the light of Christ, can literally move mountains by controlling the matter which they are in. When Moses put his arm in his bosom at the Lord's command, and pulled it out, it became leprous because the little intelligences in his arm obeyed God's mental command. It's not magic. It was in accordance with the natural laws of the universe.

[_ludwigm]

It's those little intelligences in the matter that have free agency. Only an infinitesimal fraction of one percent were born as the controlling intelligences of the spirit children of Heavenly Father.

Please don't confuse us - common carnal laymen - with the results of research on Large Hadron Collider about Higgs boson

by the way if You are the one of these, then I bow my knee before You: (The six authors of the 1964 PRL papers, who received the 2010 J. J. Sakurai Prize for their work. From left to right: Kibble, Guralnik, Hagen, Englert, Brout.)

One possible signature of a Higgs boson from a simulated proton-proton collision. It decays almost immediately into two jets of hadrons and two electrons, visible as lines:

[_gdemetz]

Maybe you wouldn't be confused if you read some of Dr. Cleon Skowsen writings concerning this. New particles have been discovered quite often in recent years, and I am not overly impressed by that, but the aforementioned writings are the only ones of its kind that I am aware of, and these help explain a lot of things which have been previously spoken and written by the prophets.