Unconscious processes

[1over137]

Hey gyus.

I came across the two following wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_mind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will

Thoughts?

[Beanybag]

Free will or determinism? Who will ever know. We have no way to test for either. It feels like we have free will and intents, but it also feels as if we have reasons that were caused by the world around us. It could also be some mix of both, as it would seem some amount of determinism is true (cause and effect, action and reaction). I'm content to leave the question unanswered until we have a much more accurate understanding of the brain.

[narnia4]

I used to kind of fret about this but I don't at all anymore. For one thing, doubt has been cast on Libet's experiments (which I find very interesting) from a great number of directions. Here is one article I read on this very recently- http://metacognizant.wordpress.com/2012 ... y-unsound/

But the biggest reason none of the big headlines catch my attention anymore is "hylemorphic dualism". It seems, at least to me, to address the criticisms against both materialism/determinism (not that they're necessarily the same) AND dualism. I think Thomists can make a very compelling case that the mind-body problem wasn't a problem at all until Descartes.

[TRussert]

You would hardy expect to find confirmation of today's cutting edge scientific findings in Scripture, but in fact we do. In Genesis, we know in the beginning there was only God and then He created the Heavens and the Earth. From nothing, a material universe was created. But was it really material or just an illusion of matter? When He created man, He created us in His image, in His likeness. This cannot refer to our physical appearance, but His invisible attributes; the ability to have conscious awareness and direct it; to make choices. The Hebrew word for image used in Genesis means illusion or phantom.

In Romans 1:20, 4:17, 2 Corinthians 4:18, and Hebrews 11:1 & 3 we learn that what we see is instead made of that which in not visible; that the physical universe was framed or constructed by God's word; his conscious awareness. All this implies what philosophy refers to as Solipsism; that all that exists does so only in God's mind. Yet, we also know God gave us free will; it is mentioned four times in the Old Testament in relation to sacrifices to God. Both Testaments abound with our ability to choose. Within God's mind then is man's mind and that deals with with the physical illusion as well as the spiritual options upon death. Philosophically then, we deal with Dualism within God's Solipsism. OK, enough of the "isms".

Quantum Mechanics, the science of the universe at it's most fundamental level, shows that physical properties (time, dimension, material structure, and our ability to detect these via the physical senses) actually exist as probabilities until they are measured or observed. Out of an unlimited number of probable variations, what we detect as physically real is only one specific probability and only in the moment of observation. Turn off the physical senses, and all goes back to an unlimited number of probable states, none of which are physical until we turn one or more of our five senses back on. The only "time" that physical experience exists for us as "real" ( takes time, has dimension, consists of matter, appears objective) is in the instant of sensory activation. Turn off the senses, and we are in a state of awareness that deals with probabilities on a less cohesive and organized basis and that may or may not represent physical experience or even anything that we can identify with, such as occurs in dreams or periods of intense mental focus where we are "disconnected" from our physical senses.

Quantum Mechanics can be interpreted to confirm the above, and other scripture. So does our sensory experience. The process of detecting and recognizing and defining what we know about physical experience has nothing to do with anything physical in the first place. We just have the illusion that it does.

Reading these words is a process that is supposed to involve light reflecting of this page and entering your eye, where the image it brings to the eye must first be coded into an electro chemical "code" specific to that image. Kind of like the specific probability out of all the possible ones. This code then must be sent along the optic nerve to the vision center of the brain. The vision center then searches it's entire database of visual codes for a match, and when one is made, only then do we recognize and define these words. Until that moment, we have no experience of vision. The eye does not recognize what we see. It can't define it or understand the these words in the image it holds. Only when the vision center of the brain identifies that code do we know what we see.

Scripture explains this quite simply. The things that are seen are not made of things which are visible. The worlds we detect as physical were framed by the word of God, who's attributes are invisible.

Scientifically, how can a brain, made of properties associated with matter exist until it is observed? How can it observe at all until observed? Who observes us, so that we in turn can observe physical reality and only in the moment of observation? God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did. The Unconscious process, for certainly we are not conscious of it!

[twinc]

is it at all possible that somewhere,somehow there blooms a flower unseen that wastes its beauty on the desert air - twinc

[RickD]

Is anyone else feeling deja vu?
http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... en#p123785

[sandy_mcd]

Is anyone else feeling deja vu?

Nope, I'm feeling de sign. What are the odds of the same post appearing twice?

[RickD]

Is anyone else feeling deja vu?

Nope, I'm feeling de sign. What are the odds of the same post appearing twice?

With twinc, just about anything's possible.