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So then the question becomes: If God is conscious, does God's consciousness arise from animal life?
God IS life and life reproduces itself. It is not a matter of consciousness arising from animal life which presents a chicken/egg conundrum. It is simply a matter of consciousness reproducing itself through mechanisms we consider animal life. A great deal of the confusion was reduced for me once I drew an analogy of our individual "cellular" lifetimes that comprise God to God's life as similar to the individual cellular lifetimes and biota that comprise us to our life. Imagine if each individual brain cell in our body were aware and trying to understand the universe that is our body. All the myriad cellular lifetimes and functions would be a complete mystery they would be trying to understand. They would communicate with each other expounding various theories, perhaps performing cellular experiments trying to understand the universe that is our body and brain. What would they make of all the carnage surrounding and in our digestive tract, colon, immune system versus infections/invasions, etc?
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For me, the words "arise from" are a red flag. If what emerges is substantially different from its source, then we end up with a form of dualism - which is fine so long as the person using the term accepts the dualism. The problem is when materialists talk in terms of the mind arising from the brain. Things get muddy here. How does something so radically different from matter arise from matter? We once again get mired in the Hard Problem.
Using my analogy, our brain cells transform energy into thoughts and feelings that are at the EM level of existence, not the cellular level of existence of the brain cells that produce them. Does that constitute producing something radically different from matter?
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And the moral parallel introduced by the Problem of Evil: How does something so radically different from love emerge from Pure Love? In any case, pointing to the animal origins doesn't really solve the problem of evil. Or, at least, it doesn't solve it without implying that the potential for evil is intrinsic to God's essence, which is fine with me, but not so fine with most Christians.
Evil is entirely the product of willful human action everything else is simply catastrophe or accident. Evil is intrinsic to the inbuilt animal survival drive and self-centeredness that is essential to the propagation of life versus the requirements of community and concern for other life. Conscious love is the goal and it emerges from the collision and overcoming of survival and selfish drives by the consideration for others that is love. As you say, it is the potential NOT the automatiic outcome.
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If there is some important sense in which a "God-as-Love" exists, then I'd say God is the loving aspect of Reality's potential. This implies that God is not the "Totality" but, rather, just an aspect of the Totality - perhaps an aspect of Reality that, we hope, somehow "wins" in the end. I can see how you, Mystic, might have come into some sort of direct contact with this loving aspect of Reality, and I can even so how (on the assumption that this aspect is conscious in/of itself), you could be convinced that this is the "real" essence of Reality - i.e., fundamentally conscious and fundamentally loving.
Thanks, Gaylen.
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Unfortunately this is one assumption too far for me because the Problem of Evil is still sitting there. To get the real scoop, you'd need to grok the Totality, including the intrinsic potential for evil, which would (it seems to my meager mind) leave you not with the impression that "God is Love" but something more like "God is neither good nor evil" (sorta Buddhist-like, or Jungian). The existence of intense suffering caused by willful hate, vengeance, jealousy, etc., makes it hard form me to really believe the combination of "God is Love" and "God is the Totality/ultimate Reality". Nature wouldn't be "red in tooth and claw" unless the Loving God made it that way for some "loving" reason that is beyond human comprehension - which brings us back to the standard "mysterious ways" defense.
I disagree. Return to the analogy of cellular existence within our body and its incomprehensible functions contributing to our life. God is a living God and His progeny must develop and mature to achieve the desired character and embodiment of love that IS our parent. In my view of the Christian narrative, none of us could do it until Jesus achieved it perfectly (in perfect resonance with God's love). Perfect resonance equals Identity. Now Christ's consciousness is available within the collective human consciousness to guide us to the truth God has "written in our hearts" in love.
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For me it seems more rational to believe either (1) There is no Creator-God or (2) If there is a Creator-God, then this God is not just "Love" and/or is powerless in the face of some aspects of Reality or powerless in the face of certain types of evil. I'm afraid I just have to remain agnostic on this cluster of ideas. Direct Divine intuitive insight and/or sheer faith in the "mysterious ways" defense seem essential to the belief that God is Love, and I have neither of these.
Returning to my analogy, how much control do you have over the cellular processes and function within your body that contribute to your life (and illness or trauma, etc.)? Clearly, we have pain signaling (like prayer, perhaps) that alerts us to issues but our responses are limited. Other than from our inflated egos and imagination, where do we get these expectations we have for God (eg. the Omni's).
Thank you providing responses this helps me understand your view.
God is whole and perfect and truth and love and unity. Truth and love dont change or else they weren't truth and love to begin with.
What is this preoccupation with a static reality when there is nothing remotely static in our reality???? As long as life IS change and our reality is life, what is truth will change with it. Having experienced the love and unity, I will not dispute that God is that for sure.
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Our awareness of them increases and advances and grows and matures. But God does not change because God is whole and perfect. So there is nothing to change since God is whole and perfect. We grow and change as we strengthen our connection with Spirit. But Spirit does not change. It is what we are growing into. We are changing. Not god.
Again your preconceptions about God lead you to your views. I have none and only deal with what I know and can know. I agree with your characterization of our role, but not with your unsupportable static views of God. There is nothing in my experience that would lead me to expect God to be static and unchanging. That is inconsistent with life.
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The omni everything God is not divorced from us. God is both transcendent "out there" and immanent "in here" within us. You describe it exactly and precisely (your words) was most surprised by my retention of Self within my sense of Oneness with everything.
The God you experienced in your significant encounters is the one God that made us all. We are the beloved children of a loving Creator.
I agree that God is both immanent and transcendent, but so are we with respect to the cellular lives and biota that comprise us. Our consciousness provides the transcendence because in our consciousness we can imagine and create things that are NOT constrained by the reality that constrains our physical lives. We are like God in that we can create in our imagination just as God creates our reality in His imagination.
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The analogy you mention of having children is one of the best there is. I don't understand why you object to the term Creator as used interchangeably for God, and us (humanity) His beloved children. Help me understand please.
I have no quarrel with your preference for Creator. It is just that I see us as intrinsic to God's very existence, NOT something He created separately from Him.
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Thank you
Thank you for your interest in my views, Tzaph. I have endeavored to explain them as best I could with limited success in my 33000+ posts.
What is this preoccupation with a static reality when there is nothing remotely static in our reality???? As long as life IS change and our reality is life, what is truth will change with it. Having experienced the love and unity, I will not dispute that God is that for sure. Again your preconceptions about God lead you to your views. I have none and only deal with what I know and can know. I agree with your characterization of our role, but not with your unsupportable static views of God. There is nothing in my experience that would lead me to expect God to be static and unchanging. That is inconsistent with life. I agree that God is both immanent and transcendent, but so are we with respect to the cellular lives and biota that comprise us. Our consciousness provides the transcendence because in our consciousness we can imagine and create things that are NOT constrained by the reality that constrains our physical lives. We are like God in that we can create in our imagination just as God creates our reality in His imagination. I have no quarrel with your preference for Creator. It is just that Isee us as intrinsic to God's very existence, NOT something He created separately from Him. Thank you for your interest in my views, Tzaph. I have endeavored to explain them as best I could with limited success in my 33000+ posts.
Spirit is essential to matter
But matter is not essential to spirit.
God / spirit is essential to the human body / physical reality because God is the life force that sustains it.
But as you yourself said when the physical body dies, the spirit still exists.
Therefore spirit is essential to matter but matter is not essential to spirit.
Change is a function of time and that which is finite and limited. God is not bound by time because God is eternal, and God is infinite and God is without limit. Human brain has trouble with this.
Biology changes. Spirit does not. Physical reality changes. God does not.
It's like a movie projector that is showing a movie on the screen. Lots of action on the screen. The projector does not change at all whether the movie is at beginning middle or end. Movie can't be shown without the projector. But projector not affected at all by movie on the screen. (I feel like I'm channeling urkoz. I love his posts.)
Which of the omnis are bothering you?
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 06-26-2017 at 04:31 AM..
Because there is more. It's the difference between a book and a library. It's the difference between exploring a closet and a palace.
What we know is great. Accessing and exploring beyond that is better. Preschool is fine yes it is. But it's not enough. We limit ourselves if we stay there and don't access higher education.
I get that, a book and a library. You want to explore. But you have to list what you have found while you are exploring. That will give you an understanding of the library.
why omni powerful? why can't it just be as powerful is it is? It doesn't appear that it can do anything it wants, why do we need to think it is doing exactly what it wants? what's wrong with doing what it can?
omni-knowing, why can't it just know what it knows? the universe is storing far more information than our brains. I get that. The cosmic web looks like the branching pattern of a brain. But why this omni stuff? why 'poof there it is"?
Perhaps, semantics can be unnecessarily confusing. At the highest energy (lowest aggregation) everything is vibratory ("particle" events being vibratory packets). When these vibratory events aggregate into what we experience as matter, their seeming "permanence" is the resultant spherical standing wave (summation) of the aggregated vibratory components.
yeah, you guys just demonstrated why I use the term 'frozen". its not the best, and you guys have put it better. but when talking to the average person, they understand frozen.
I am gona whip out " ... their seeming "permanence" is the resultant spherical standing wave (summation) of the aggregated vibratory component.." on the next house wife asking. see how that goes in helping them understand. its definitely a better way, but there is a time component issue.
the point of my post was to point out the difference in what we think we see and what is actually there, they can be very different. and we don't have to use magic to describe not known yet.
traz's "spirit' seems like magical, but i could wrong.
Last edited by Arach Angle; 06-26-2017 at 06:40 AM..
I may have got it all wrong, but so far Mystic is making sense to me. I think the place where we part company is supposing that all this amounts to cosmic intelligence (if anything else is meant by "consciousness" I cannot think what) and I see no convincing sign of that in our universe.
no you got it. and, his way is good.
the cosmic mind prediction comes from the interactions of these fields. Our brains are a result of these interactions between fields. As per mystic's spherical vibrating aggregate.
now look at the volume of your head. How many field interactions in there over a given time frame in that volume?
The time component can be stretched or contracted at will here. so think of one thought in your head taking 1000 years. To you, it appeared to happen just like it did right now.
now to tying that into what we are predicting:
that due to the number of fields, the number of interactions, and the volume of space, the information transfer will be at least as much as in our brains.
I have kept "cosmic mind" to "biosphere" because it makes that prediction empirical.
You not seeing any evidence of it is confusing to us. Did you see any evidence of the trillions of neutrinos that went through you while reading this sentence? The prediction is well within reason and not a stretch at all.
Mordofarant refuses to address this claim because he knows how valid it is. In fact, he knows, thats why he ran away.
Last edited by Arach Angle; 06-26-2017 at 07:02 AM..
Using my analogy, our brain cells transform energy into thoughts and feelings that are at the EM level of existence, not the cellular level of existence of the brain cells that produce them. Does that constitute producing something radically different from matter?
And now for some speculative musings...
The stickler for me is the phrase "transform energy into thoughts and feelings..." The term "energy" as it is used in these types of conversations is incredibly vague. This is not your fault. I don't think that anyone, including physicists, have a very good grip on the concept. We all have to fall back on something like "That which...." where we never really comprehend the "that". In physics we use math to describe a progression of "states" such that "things are like this" and then "things are like that" and to get from "this" to "that" requires "energy" but "energy" can't really be defined beyond saying it is basically a set of accounting symbols in our equations to help us explain what is and is not possible. E.g., if the value represented by this symbol is too low then, mathematically, you can't get from this to that. So, whatever else "energy" is, the lesson of physics seems to be that energy defines parameters of physical possibility.
But I think it is important to note that, from a physics point of view, we have to be careful with the concept of "change." We think of motion as "change" but notice that motion (i.e., "change" in some basic sense) does not, in itself, require energy. Once in motion, an object will stay in motion forever unless some forces (e.g., friction, etc.) work against them. At the quantum level, many processes are essentially "frictionless" and thus "motion" in this rudimentary sense is eternal - it is just flat-out intrinsic to Being.
Where am I going with all of this? In a nutshell: Neurons are patterns of entities that are in, in themselves, "perpetual motion machines" and it is the patterned nature of these physical systems that "require energy" in the usual sense of the term. "Transformation" of energy is the "changing of patterns". Without an "input of energy" patterns don't emerge, and - unlike pure motion - most patterns don't simply go on eternally just as a matter of principle. Most patterns are systems that, by their very nature, require continuous work to maintain. (Basically, if it takes energy to produce a pattern, then it takes energy to maintain it.)
You say "brain cells transform energy into thoughts and feelings" and I interpret this as: "Brain cells are patterns of perpetual motion machines that self-organized into patterns of perpetual motion machines that..." - and then the "Hard Problem" hits the fan - "started to feel like" this or that." My basic point is that thoughts and feels don't seem to be, in themselves, perpetual motion machines. They are patterns that needed inputs of energy in order to self-organize, and they require on-going inputs of energy in order to stay coherent over time. Do God's thoughts and feelings somehow break this rule? If God's thoughts and feelings are somehow intrinsically "frictionless"/eternal, and we are "God's offspring" then why aren't our thoughts and feelings similarly self-sustaining? Granting magic, of course, anything is possible. But if we are trying to make rational sense of the world based on observed evidence, then we have no basis for intrinsically eternal thoughts/feelings, as such, and no basis for explaining how God has thoughts/feelings other than via physical brains. Or do we?
You suggest the analogy that God's mind is to our minds as our brains are to our neurons. But I don't predate my neurons in a way that, seemingly, Gods mind predates the existence of physical conscious minds. If thoughts and feelings are patterns of energy that required energy in order to come into existence - and require continuous inputs of energy to persist over time - then it seem reasonable to think that God's thoughts and feelings are like this as well. God's thoughts and feelings would emerge from the patterned interactions of our brains, more or less like our thoughts and feelings emerge from the patterned interactions of our neurons. But there is an option: Perhaps God's thoughts and feelings are, somehow, eternal "frictionless" patterns - or potential for such patterns - i.e., fundamentally self-sustaining patterns of energy that, for some reason, give rise to the friction-filled patterns we experience as physical bodies. In this case the "transformation" is not so much from neurons to thoughts and feelings, but rather from the eternal self-sustaining "perpetual-motion-machinery" of Gods thoughts and feeling to infinite variations of friction-limited "offspring".
Speculative bottom line:
God = Patterns of "perpetual motion machines" that did not require energy to emerge and thus might not require energy to sustain.
Biological conscious beings: Pattern of "perpetual motion machines" that emerged via input of energy and thus require inputs of energy in order to maintain existence.
The biological conscious machinery could be more or less in synch with the "God patterns" - which leads to your claim that Jesus was in-synch in a perfect way. I'm still skeptical of that claim, but I'm basically wearing my sci-fi writer's hat to see if I can cast something roughly like the Christian narrative into some format that explains "The Problem of Evil". I'm not sure if I succeeded, but I gave it a shot.
One problem: The eternal self-sustaining patterns would be infinite loops. That's how they are able to be "frictionless". Such loops are not creative. Reality would be sorta like an eternal standing-wave that never "does anything fun". (Jesus would be a very boring guy?) Creativity require energetic input, but creativity is also inherently unpredictable. Being fun goes hand-in-hand with the potential for being not-so-fun. Perhaps biological brains are the creative machinery of God's mind. Without us Reality would be a "standing wave" - peaceful and pleasant (we would hope?), but eternally boring from our point of view (probably not really "conscious" in any interesting sense of the word).
One problem: The eternal self-sustaining patterns would be infinite loops. That's how they are able to be "frictionless". Such loops are not creative. Reality would be sorta like an eternal standing-wave that never "does anything fun". (Jesus would be a very boring guy?) Creativity require energetic input, but creativity is also inherently unpredictable. Being fun goes hand-in-hand with the potential for being not-so-fun. Perhaps biological brains are the creative machinery of God's mind. Without us Reality would be a "standing wave" - peaceful and pleasant (we would hope?), but eternally boring from our point of view (probably not really "conscious" in any interesting sense of the word).
why the assumption that the universe a perpetual motion machine?
also, no change = no work. your moving body experiences no work. energy is work is it not? work, regardless if its fun or not, is happening in life. the frictionless fluid you elude to is doing work. No friction, I get that part, but isn't that doing work? work is creative. its doing something. Its doing us.
Last edited by Arach Angle; 06-26-2017 at 10:28 AM..
"forever" "everywhere" "all the time" "never ends"
those are omni.
are you comfortable with those?
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 06-26-2017 at 11:43 AM..
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