An Intellectual's Christian Narrative: A Non-Magical Alternative (Revelation, atheist, quote)

[Gaylenwoof]

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

Without objective reality, there would be no subjective experience, AND (2) without subjective experience there would be no objective reality.
Hmm. I'm not sure. If I get what 'subjective experience' means (what's in our heads as a model, shall we say, or the reality outside) the subjective faculty would still be there even if there was no outside reality.. I know that is there was not none of us would exist, but the proposition looks to me like what you called not a logical impossibility, even if it is a practical impossibility.

We seem to be in agreement here (at long last!) - Idealism is a logical possibility, although neither of us sees it as a natural possibility. But just to be clear: When I say "Without objective reality, there would be no subjective experience" I am making a claim about natural possibility, not logical possibility. I am positing a logical "given" - an ontological foundational assumption that I believe provides a better explanatory basis than other options. To me it seems closer to "self-evident" than the alternatives, but I'm not claiming it is the only option.

But in the last couple of posts, what I'm really aiming to convey is the idea that the concept of "objective" always already presupposes subjectivity. Only a subject can conceive of "objectivity" in the first place (indeed, only a subject in a social context of "others" can do this). So what, exactly is "objective" existence? We want to say that objects exist independent of us, but we need to be careful about this notion of "independence" - especially if we want to avoid dogmatic forms of "faith". I cannot even in principle experience the supposed "external world" as such. The best I can do - even in principle - is experience the external world as given. The "externality" or the "objectivity" or the "otherness" is always as given, and I think the deep importance of this given-ness gets overlooked when we think that we are imagining a world without any subjects. We are a subject imagining a world without any subjects, and in this act of imagination we prove, without any reasonable doubt, that what we are imagining is not naturally possible. We try to imagine that we are somehow referring to something that is completely independent of the act of imagination (that we are somehow grasping a thing in itself), but this aspect of our imagination is illusory. It is ultimately the "as given" that matters to us, and to society, and to science. THAT (i.e., the "as given") is what's "really real" - THAT (i.e., the "as given") is what is really and truly what we are referring to when we refer to something as existing "objectively." Yes, logically speaking, it seems as though there could be some truly independent objects or aspects of reality, but if such things exist, they can't possibly have anything whatsoever to do with us. Those logically possible "objects" are pure speculations that cannot, even in principle, have anything to do with anything that we, or science, care about. The laws of nature are patterns of the "giving" aspect of reality - and that aspect of reality is not truly independent of subjects because the act of "giving" belies the underlying connectivity.

Like the bullet in flight, the "giving" aspect of reality is not under our conscious control. We cannot make the giver do anything that the giver is not inclined to do. The giver is "independent" in that sense, and this independence is the root our concept of objective existence, as discovered via inter-subjective agreement. But notice that the "giving" nature of the giver is built-in to what it is to be the giver in the first place. There is no "giving" without a receiver. The act of giving logically implies the receiver "built in" to the very nature of the giver as a giver. The giver, as a giver, is-what-what-it-is because receivers are what they are. The giver and receiver are in a logically-binding relationship precisely because the receiver is "built in" to the very nature of the giver, and the giver is built in to the very nature of the receiver. Given the "act of giving," the giver and receiver are logically inseparable. Neither can "be what it is" without the other. For the purposes of conceptual analysis we try to imagine them as ontologically isolated entities, but in reality they are logically bound - their essences "as giver" and "as receiver" are logically interdependent, like two sides of a coin. You can "look at them" independently, but they are not, in actual fact, independent. The "other side" is logically implied in whatever side you happen to be looking at.

The objective aspect of reality is the "giver" and the moments of subjective experience are the "receivers", but the giver is not a giver without the receivers and the receivers are not receivers without the giver. Ontologically, there is one thing with two aspects - two "flip sides of the coin". Maybe the giver is "something more" than its role as giver but, if so, the "something more" is only relevant to receivers insofar as it plays some role in the nature of the act of giving. This is what science uncovers: The "stuff" that can possibly play some sort of role in the giving of the giver. It's the "as given" or as "possibly given" that matters to the receivers, as receivers. And it's our aspect "as receivers" that matter to us because that is our subjective experience, and it is what we experience as the "really real" stuff "out there" that we confirm via intersubjective agreement.

Also notice that, although the nature of the giver, as giver, necessarily implies qualitative subjective experience (because that is the content of the given, in this case), it does not necessarily mean that the giver is conscious. Maybe so, but maybe not. If conscious, we have a conception of God; if not conscious, we probably have something more like the standard physics concepts of fundamental fields. And, even if there is a God, we may be flirting with the mechanisms of God's primordial unconscious essence.

I zipped through this super fast, and now I have to run. I'll have to come back later to see if I still agree with what I've said.

[TRANSPONDER]

Well, let's see whether you agree that objectivity pre-supposing subjectivity as a practical situation based on the mechanics of the reality that existence has (by which I mean the existence of humans and indeed any critters with a sense of identity that can Have 'subjectivity'), but it does not follow that this has to be some Law of Reality. If no conscious life existed anywhere in the universe, there would be no subjectivity.

But then, I suppose that the argument was always about human consciousness and our perception of reality. But it's a bit too much like saying 'the way it looks to us is how it actually has to be', and that falls under the the problem of imperfect human perception. The way we see it is not necessarily the way it has to be.

[Gaylenwoof]

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

If no conscious life existed anywhere in the universe, there would be no subjectivity.

True, but the problem is with the "if". If 5+7=4, then adding two positive numbers can give you a result that is less than either of the added numbers. Well, yeah, but since the "if" is flawed from the start, the "then" become gibberish.

Of course, with your claim, the "if" seems ok. Presumably no conscious life existed in our universe just a few hours after the Big Bang, so it seems safe to say that no subjective experience was happening at that point (unless we just straight-up declare that God was there, which is a flat-out assertion that neither you, nor I, accept). But time and consciousness are unsettled concepts. We don't really know what we are talking about when we use these words. Because of this, our concepts of objectivity and subjectivity are unsettled too.

One thing we can say, with fairly high confidence, is that quantum states don't have determinate values prior to measurement (i.e., there are no local hidden variables). We can also say, with fairly high confidence, that a quantum particle that started its journey toward Earth a billion years ago did not have determinate values until it smacked into a measuring device in a scientist's lab. In other words, the "past" of that particle was not determinately settled until the present and, so far as we can tell, the determinate values were not assigned until some conscious mind interpreted the measuring device. Today we have some conceptual ways to avoid the stark notion that "consciousness causes the collapse of the wave packet" but, nevertheless, the math remains consistent with the interpretations of Wegner and other early developers of QM who promoted the "consciousness-causes-the-collapse" view. It is possible to avoid letting conscious observation play a role, but there is no consensus about how to do it, or even if we should do it. Schrodinger's Cat and Wigner's Friend are alive and well.

At this point you are probably thinking "argument from ignorance" or "God in the cracks". But what I'm trying to do is bite a certain bullet and take a particular bull by the horns and let the chips fall where they may (how's that for a mixed metaphor medley?). As a matter of blatant fact and logical necessity, we really don't know anything about an objective reality that is ontologically independent of subjective experience. "Objective reality" is a hypothesis that seems to perfectly explain intersubjective agreements, the existence of surprise, and our lack of subjective control over the "external world." I, for one, don't want to lose the gains made by this hypothesis. But the "mind-independence" of "objectivity" can be overstated. Along similar lines, our everyday linear conception of time can be overstated. Natural language and our everyday intuitions fail us here, but I'm pointing roughly toward the idea that the whole of Reality, including parts of the "past" and part of the "future" are happening "now" - in a manner of speaking. This implies that a certain sort of "teleology" may be required before our physical theories can really explain what we want to explain (assuming we can ever really explain this stuff).

Basically, I suspect that some parts or aspects of Reality are fundamentally non-temporal. One might say, for example, that photons are non-temporal insofar as they do not experience any "passage of time." But, clearly, photons can carry information. So, very roughly, it appears that temporal information and causality can emerge from non-temporal elements or aspects of Reality. But, of course, photons are created and destroyed in quantum processes, so there is a sense in which these "non-temporal" entities are temporally bound, which is weird, but possibly instructive. Energy, in general, is fully non-temporal, but actualized (i.e., "particular") energy packets emerge and dissolve and, presumably, "constitute time", "carry information", "transmit causal influences", etc., in the process. One key concept: "temporality" is fundamentally perspectival, and "being perspectival" is fundamental to subjectivity being what it is.

I still say that there would never be (per natural possibility/impossibility) a "feeling of being conscious" that is not, in fact, a physical process, but I very much doubt that there was ever a "time" in Reality, where no physical process was experiencing consciousness. (Hence the "if" in your initial sentence can only lead to gibberish, even though it seems plausible to everyday intuitions.) I think it is safe to say that a year after the Big Bang there was no physical process "feeling conscious" from that perspective in that time or place, but I think it is misguided to try to imagine those moments "just happening" completely independent of current subjective observations. The determinate values of some of those processes are just being determines now. The past cannot be completely divorced from the present or from the future. It would be misguided, however, to take this to mean that our minds today are "creating" those early processes. It's hard to get an good intuitive grasp on this stuff, and even harder to express via natural language, but somehow holism applies, not just spatially, but temporally as well. This is not a "block universe" view because I don't think the future has fully happened any more than the past has fully happened. Somehow "now" is the only actuality. The past and the future are real, but they are real - as actualized - only in the "now" in a way that I frankly cannot explain to my own intuitive satisfaction.

It's sorta like we are assembling a jigsaw puzzle, but no particular piece is pre-ordained to fit in a particular place or look a certain way prior to its being actually fitted into place. After a piece falls into place, it's determinate shape and color constrain how future pieces can fit, but even then its "interpretation" is not fully fixed. Future puzzle assemblers can still reinterpret the "meaning" of the piece and this new interpretation changes the possibilities - i.e., changes constrains on future pieces. And it is probably an infinite puzzle, so there is probably no such thing as an ultimate state in which the meaning of every piece, or the meaning of the whole, is permanently crystalized into a static structure.

There could be a God who is the ultimate creator and/or assembler of the puzzle, but I think it is more likely that the assembly is a teamwork effort in which clusters of already-assembled pieces contribute to the continuing assembly, and there was never a time when none of these types of clusters existed (hence never a time when conscious assemblers weren't consciously assembling some parts of the puzzle, even though realms of the puzzle - like the early stages of our particular universe within the multiverse - were too disorganized to count as conscious assemblers in that particular region).

Speculative, of course, but all metaphysical suppositions are speculative - including the supposition that objective reality is "ontologically independent of mind". Some speculations just don't seem so speculative because we've grown used to them. Quantum "woo" can't currently settle any of this, but it does force us to speculate in ways that are unfamiliar and all of these speculations make "classical-minded" people uncomfortable in one way or another. I'm just picking a form of discomfort that seem most plausible to me.

[TRANSPONDER]

Just to start off with the If. If this is what if is a logical possibility (not a logical impossibility) which provides as logically sound premise. That should not be confused with a practical impossibility which is the non -existence of consciousness (including subjectivity) in the universe. Obviously that is not the case, but the logically sound premise that IF there was none, reality would still be there (or I suppose so(1) would seem to make Reality NOT dependent on subjectivity both as a logical premise and a practical one. I think that we have to settle this before we can address the rest of your post.

(1) we are getting into the area of the materialist default and it seems to come down to my proposition that the Reality constantly surprising us would make reality not being dependant on the human mind the first choice theory under Occam's razor.

Next point. I don't know about a quantum particle, but i would say that the argument applies to any particle or indeed a meteor if it hits us. There may be no quantative ...what was it? Determinate values, before we can measure them when it interacts with us. But good old William of Occam would ask why we should assume they were any different before we could measure them from what they were after we could?

It is indeed something of a God of the gaps, or rather appeal to unknowns (which is the same thing- just not limited to the god -claim) in which all sorts of logical entities can be multiplied without sufficient reason. But if we do that, we can work nothing out, either scientifically or philosophically, and while that might suit religious apologetics rather well, I doubt whether you want that any more than I do.

I'm fine with mixed metaphors. I have a whole freezerful. And i get your drift, which is why I argue that subjectivity IS I totally agree, the box in which we have to live, and reality as it appears to us is what appears on the radar screen. But I'm sure you will see that the radar -room in which we live -our subjectivity - is not affecting what is outside (less even that gun -bullet analogy) , which is what it is - reality, just as the aircraft is not the green blob on the screen. nor even anything like it. Yet we know what it is.

Mary (our dear old Mary) the Radar operator has experience and evidence to know that it is an aircraft and even what it is like, even if she has never seen one.

Next point. I am not going to claim to understand Quantum. All I say is that the understanding that we have of the reality that we DO understand is still valid, no matter what is happening at quantum level. Or to put it another way, we knew that limes could prevent scurvy, even though we had no idea why. Reality obtains even if we don't understand what is going on down to the Nano-particle level.

This is, I may say, the argument used against those who try to debunk a natural origin for the Cosmos or life on the grounds that we can't explain (or prove, anyway) the start. What we do know makes natural origins a first choice. So opting for Universality (I think that's the term) or is it Uniformity? in natural events (Photons, meteors etc,) is the logical first bet, until evidence that it isn't pops up. Like for instance the evidence that the magnetic pole reversed in the past. Now we know. Once we didn't and no doubt it caused a puzzle at the time.

What this comes down to is that reality is what it is, and what it might have been in the past or what might be going on where we can't see it, makes no difference to what we reliably know about what we see as a blob on the screen - the reality outside our minds which exists independently of our minds.

Next point. The idea of consciousness existing before there could be any such thing does seem hard to grasp, but I feel that we have a problem of labels over concepts, and we have to add to the concept (which might be better expressed as 'physical action and reaction') the idea of evolution. And evolution is a wider term than Biological evolution which is limited to bioforms. We also have chemical evolution, which is increasing complexity of matter according to known physical laws (the laws of thermodynamics in that case, so I recall).

So I won't go though the whole thing as i know you can work it out, but mere action and reaction of matter before even stars existed or the Big Bang event for that matter, was the start of the chain of evolution that led to consciousness, the Biggie here being the chemical ability to replicate (the ancestor of DNA) which was where we had what we could call 'Life'. Even then we had to go a long way before animals developed any kind of awareness or sense of identity, which i suspect might have been in early pack -hunting animals that needed a social structure. Raptors perhaps. Certainly sabre -tooth tigers.

So it's like the fallacy of the beard. You can trace Darwin's impressive beard to the single hair on his 14 year -old chin, but to call it 'beard' and then say that makes no sense is as wrong (putting labels before concepts) as looking at the human consciousness, awareness and subjectivity, then looking at the early reactions of matter, calling it 'consciousness' and saying 'That's gibberish'. It is, but the semantics are the gibberish, not the concept. Of course, i agree that this makes Consciousness a natural/mechanical process. A very complex one.

Next?

Oooh. I don't know that the Jigsaw puzzle analogy is a good one. It sounds to me like a very basic error that theist apologists make and which screws their entire thinking: the idea of a predetermined plan.


You know how it goes - the chances of chance chance chancing to result in an Intended result are unimaginably astronomically against - without a designer carefully doing it. The basis of argument from design.

The chances of chance chance chancing to produce the chance result - whatever it is is 1/1. You just have to accept that what we have was Not Pre -planned, and the 'jigsaw' pieces all fitting' argument fails. By analogy, there is NO picture on the box that you are trying to match. The jigsaw is really like the film scene i saw of a dumb blonde filing the pieces to make them fit. In the watertight analogy, nature is filing all the pieces to fit so they make a larger and more complex jigsaw and that is all the result that you get. The is no 'picture' to copy.

I saw you ending up getting towards this, so I hope that the above Atheist Apologetics response to the argument from design might assist.

[MysticPhD]

Gaylen and Arq Thanks for the stimulating discourse. Our consciousness provides the ability to engage these issues (and to create them) rationally, logically, and emotionally but our perspective is flawed by the very nature of the formation of our consciousness itself. The concepts and cognitive structures we accept as natural elements of our reality are themselves in some way false representations based on the very nature of our consciousness. Arq uses the radar screen analogy to match his intuition of an objective reality "out there" but "out there" is a function of our subjective experiencing of Self. That is not innate. A newborn infant makes no such distinction. It has to learn to distinguish the "in here" from the "out there" as his consciousness forms and gains ascendance.

We are prevented from intellectually engaging with the formation of our consciousness because we can only operate our intellect when it is fully formed. Our instantaneous consciousness is not remotely instantaneous. Its formation is beyond our scrutiny because we need it fully formed as we experience it to scrutinize anything. This creates an "experiential time" as our instantaneous consciousness experiences our reality. This "experiential time" is a function of what Whitehead called our "stream of consciousness." It is separate from what he called the "creative advance" of nature. This "creative advance" of our reality is what I call the real-time or "quantum time" during which our instantaneous consciousness actually forms.

Our measures are all made during "experiential time" after our consciousness forms. This places an illusory veneer over all our subjectively derived measures of "objective" reality (which ACTUALLY exists during the real or "quantum time" of the creative advance). For Arq, this illusory veneer and its measures of "objective" reality is the default materialistic reality despite its inherently illusory and subjective nature. For example, the constants we measure are NOT "objective" features of our reality as so many of our theories assume. They are only constant because our consciousness takes the same "quantum time" to form our "instantaneous awareness" that we use to do the measuring.

This time discrepancy in the illusory veneer of our measurements is what accounts for the confusing "indeterminacy" in the Quantum realm. Our experiencing of reality is in a kind of "time delay" because of the "quantum time" during which our consciousness is formed. Reality has already occurred during the creative advance ("quantum time") before we are able to observe, or experience, or measure it. This calls into question all the premises that form the basis of our subjective understanding and theories of our reality.

[TRANSPONDER]

Interesting post. I think, off the top of my head, that this is the problem of limited and imperfect human perception and understanding. As you said (or so it seems to me), the imperfections of perception are there from the start, and finding out what's beyond that and correcting misperception is what science does. The material default is perhaps more relating to reality - what it actually is - rather than our understanding of it.

But I'll have a few more reads -through.

[Gaylenwoof]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

Arq uses the radar screen analogy to match his intuition of an objective reality "out there" but "out there" is a function of our subjective experiencing of Self. That is not innate. A newborn infant makes no such distinction. It has to learn to distinguish the "in here" from the "out there" as his consciousness forms and gains ascendance.

In term of linguistically saturated higher cognitive functioning, this is essentially correct. But I'd like to take a moment to consider the conditions for the possibility of the experience of “self” and “not-self”/"not me" (i.e., external object or “world out there”) and a particular kind of “not-me” that related to a concept I will loosely refer to as “empathy” – the idea that “I” am an object “out there” in the experience of an other. As I suggested in a previous post, I think “self”, “world” and “other” are interdependent. Each of these types of experiences implicitly contains the other two. We are not born with these concepts in an intellectual sense, but there is evidence that we are born with them in an implicit way. Infants can imitate adult behaviors in a way that suggests that they are already experiencing the “proto-concepts” of self, world, and other. And, what I’m trying to emphasize, is that each of these three concepts depends on the other two to some extent.

Also, I want emphasize that these are all intrinsically embodied concepts. They all stem from a fundamental duality of perspective in which I experience my body both “from the inside” and “from the outside.” Even as an infant, my hand is both “self” and “object.” I “see it out there” but I also experience it as “touching” and “being touched”. I “touch the world” and “the world touches back” and all of this relates to that “object” (my-body-as-object) associated with the touching. The infant doesn’t infer any of this – all of this is pre-linguistic, but it is, nevertheless, qualitative/experiential - and, I want to emphasize, embodied. I don’t see any good basis for any sort of “pure” or non-embodied consciousness – especially not for any intellectual/cognitive thinking types of conscious experience. If there is a God, and if God has any concepts of self, not-self, and other, then then God would experience herself in a fundamentally embodied way that, upon closer analysis would be understood as functionally neurological and contextually embedded in a world. (But, given my multiverse view of Reality, I don’t feel tied to the idea that all experience or intelligence has to be limited to this world as we know it.)

For the record, I’d say there was never any temporally “first” embodied mind. Fundamentally, the roots of Reality are non-temporal so, in a manner of speaking, I suspect that “it’s embodied cognitions all the way down.” I entertain the idea of a primordial (a sort of non-temporal/logical condition for the possibility of…) actualized/embodied consciousness that I compare to the “experience” of a sleeping mind – a “that which does the awakening” whenever actual conscious experience comes on-line. When I awaken from a dreamless sleep, I have a sense of “time having passed” – I was, in a sense, “there” and yet “not-there” and I suspect that this retroactive feeling is probably about as close as we can typically get to experiencing the “Mind of God” – the fundamentally non-temporal, qualitative essence of Reality – the “pure potential” out of which actuality emerges – not in the distant past, but always eternally now.

Side note: I might characterize what you refer to as the idea of “God is Love” as, perhaps, tapping into the potential for experiencing the other (including myself as-other in the eyes of the other). Only after we start to have embodied experiences of pleasure, disappointment, and pain associated with the “other” do we slip into a “utility” mode of love involving memory and expectation.

For Arq, this illusory veneer and its measures of "objective" reality is the default materialistic reality despite its inherently illusory and subjective nature. For example, the constants we measure are NOT "objective" features of our reality as so many of our theories assume. They are only constant because our consciousness takes the same "quantum time" to form our "instantaneous awareness" that we use to do the measuring.

This time discrepancy in the illusory veneer of our measurements is what accounts for the confusing "indeterminacy" in the Quantum realm. Our experiencing of reality is in a kind of "time delay" because of the "quantum time" during which our consciousness is formed. Reality has already occurred during the creative advance ("quantum time") before we are able to observe, or experience, or measure it. This calls into question all the premises that form the basis of our subjective understanding and theories of our reality.

I basically agree that our conscious experience is formed in pre-conscious processing, which is why I don’t see much probability of any non-embodied consciousness – especially any sort of intelligent conscious experience. I don’t see this as reason to conclude that human consciousness is as illusory as you seem to be implying, but I will have to come back to this later.

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

In term of linguistically saturated higher cognitive functioning, this is essentially correct. But I'd like to take a moment to consider the conditions for the possibility of the experience of “self” and “not-self”/"not me" (i.e., external object or “world out there”) and a particular kind of “not-me” that related to a concept I will loosely refer to as “empathy” – the idea that “I” am an object “out there” in the experience of an other. As I suggested in a previous post, I think “self”, “world” and “other” are interdependent. Each of these types of experiences implicitly contains the other two. We are not born with these concepts in an intellectual sense, but there is evidence that we are born with them in an implicit way. Infants can imitate adult behaviors in a way that suggests that they are already experiencing the “proto-concepts” of self, world, and other. And, what I’m trying to emphasize, is that each of these three concepts depends on the other two to some extent.

Also, I want emphasize that these are all intrinsically embodied concepts. They all stem from a fundamental duality of perspective in which I experience my body both “from the inside” and “from the outside.” Even as an infant, my hand is both “self” and “object.” I “see it out there” but I also experience it as “touching” and “being touched”. I “touch the world” and “the world touches back” and all of this relates to that “object” (my-body-as-object) associated with the touching. The infant doesn’t infer any of this – all of this is pre-linguistic, but it is, nevertheless, qualitative/experiential - and, I want to emphasize, embodied. I don’t see any good basis for any sort of “pure” or non-embodied consciousness – especially not for any intellectual/cognitive thinking types of conscious experience. If there is a God, and if God has any concepts of self, not-self, and other, then God would experience herself in a fundamentally embodied way that, upon closer analysis would be understood as functionally neurological and contextually embedded in a world. (But, given my multiverse view of Reality, I don’t feel tied to the idea that all experience or intelligence has to be limited to this world as we know it.)

For the record, I’d say there was never any temporally “first” embodied mind. Fundamentally, the roots of Reality are non-temporal so, in a manner of speaking, I suspect that “it’s embodied cognitions all the way down.” I entertain the idea of a primordial (a sort of non-temporal/logical condition for the possibility of…) actualized/embodied consciousness that I compare to the “experience” of a sleeping mind – a “that which does the awakening” whenever actual conscious experience comes on-line. When I awaken from a dreamless sleep, I have a sense of “time having passed” – I was, in a sense, “there” and yet “not-there” and I suspect that this retroactive feeling is probably about as close as we can typically get to experiencing the “Mind of God” – the fundamentally non-temporal, qualitative essence of Reality – the “pure potential” out of which actuality emerges – not in the distant past, but always eternally now.

Side note: I might characterize what you refer to as the idea of “God is Love” as, perhaps, tapping into the potential for experiencing the other (including myself as other in the eyes of the other). Only after we start to have embodied experiences of pleasure, disappointment, and pain associated with the “other” do we slip into a “utility” mode of love involving memory and expectation.

I basically agree that our conscious experience is formed in pre-conscious processing, which is why I don’t see much probability of any non-embodied consciousness – especially any sort of intelligent conscious experience. I don’t see this as reason to conclude that human consciousness is as illusory as you seem to be implying, but I will have to come back to this later.

Your posts always painstakingly present the intricacies that plague our understanding of consciousness and our experience of it as Self, Gaylen. It is why I admire your intellect and posts so much. I am particularly impressed by how you use the "God-alternative" speculation of a multiverse to encapsulate the Gaps for God into a supposed scientific rubric. It is not quite as elegant as my use of resonance/dissonance in a ubiquitous vibratory milieu as the foundational structure that God's consciousness uses to manifest our reality, IMO.

It is undeniable that our concepts of consciousness are intrinsically embodied. But that applies only to the reproduction of consciousness, NOT its existential primacy. Our earliest intuitions were that there had to be an ether within which all that we consider part of our reality manifested. All that my view suggests is that the "ether" is actually the consciousness field of God within which ALL manifestations exist. This primal consciousness field is NOT embodied, but our contributions to it are.

This presents a very confusing milieu within which to understand God's consciousness or our role in its reproduction. Essentially, we are within a living Reality whose growth and development establishes the "creative advance" we only collaterally experience. Our experiences are entirely circumscribed by the requirement that every instance of what we use for "experiencing" (our instantaneous consciousness) has to form during the creative advance (Quantum time) to enable our experiencing anything.

This places the creative advance essentially beyond our experiential grasp so we must evaluate everything using our experiential time, i.e., our "stream of consciousness" time. This agrees with your notion that the "roots of our Reality are non-temporal, in a manner of speaking," because it is NOT in our measured experiential or "stream of consciousness time." That time is an illusory construct of our sequentially experienced consciousness.

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

Your posts always painstakingly present the intricacies that plague our understanding of consciousness and our experience of it as Self, Gaylen. It is why I admire your intellect and posts so much. I am particularly impressed by how you use the "God-alternative" speculation of a multiverse to encapsulate the Gaps for God into a supposed scientific rubric. It is not quite as elegant as my use of resonance/dissonance in a ubiquitous vibratory milieu as the foundational structure that God's consciousness uses to manifest our reality, IMO.

It is undeniable that our concepts of consciousness are intrinsically embodied. But that applies only to the reproduction of consciousness, NOT its existential primacy. Our earliest intuitions were that there had to be an ether within which all that we consider part of our reality manifested. All that my view suggests is that the "ether" is actually the consciousness field of God within which ALL manifestations exist. This primal consciousness field is NOT embodied, but our contributions to it are.

This presents a very confusing milieu within which to understand God's consciousness or our role in its reproduction. Essentially, we are within a living Reality whose growth and development establishes the "creative advance" we only collaterally experience. Our experiences are entirely circumscribed by the requirement that every instance of what we use for "experiencing" (our instantaneous consciousness) has to form during the creative advance (Quantum time) to enable our experiencing anything.

This places the creative advance essentially beyond our experiential grasp so we must evaluate everything using our experiential time, i.e., our "stream of consciousness" time. This agrees with your notion that the "roots of our Reality are non-temporal, in a manner of speaking," because it is NOT in our measured experiential or "stream of consciousness time." That time is an illusory construct of our sequentially experienced consciousness.

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

Interesting post. I think, off the top of my head, that this is the problem of limited and imperfect human perception and understanding. As you said (or so it seems to me), the imperfections of perception are there from the start, and finding out what's beyond that and correcting misperception is what science does. The material default is perhaps more relating to reality - what it actually is - rather than our understanding of it.

But I'll have a few more reads -through.

The real problem, Arq, is that the very method we use to investigate our reality relies on illusory measures because of the requirement for our "instantaneous" conscious awareness to form BEFORE we can measure and investigate anything.

[gabfest]

Is there any debate as to whether or not nothing is solid & everything is energy?