God is
Jack
Sir Frederick
>just a theory.
>
Practice a "theory" enough and it will become
experienced as a fact, part of "reality".
Similar to your personification.
Mike E. Fullerton
> just a theory.
And its the best theory of explaining why we have consciousness. Left in
its dust is its only "competing" theory, emergence, which absurdly
claims that consciousness magically arises out of thin air when a system
reaches the appropriate level of organization.
--
Skeptopathy (pathological skepticism)
the unscientific belief that unusual phenomena are bunk.
Art
<infor...@spam-killer-remove-techie.com> wrote:
>Jack wrote:
>> just a theory.
>
>And its the best theory of explaining why we have consciousness. Left in
>its dust is its only "competing" theory, emergence, which absurdly
>claims that consciousness magically arises out of thin air when a system
>reaches the appropriate level of organization.
Indeed. In fact, I think the building blocks of the universes (systems
of reality) are complex psychic mental units ... God stuff. The modern
mind is apt to reject such a notion since it's trained to think in
terms of building complex systems out of simple elements.
andy-k
> Jack wrote:
>> just a theory.
>
> And its the best theory of explaining why we have consciousness.
How does it do that?
andy-k
> Jack wrote:
>> just a theory.
>
> And its the best theory of explaining why we have consciousness.
How does it do that?
turtoni
god is the placeholder for anything we cant explain.
Immortalist
> just a theory.
Is the theory that God is a theory, factual? If someone says, "God is
just a theory" the "is" is portrayed as a fact not a theory, right?
Shrik...@gmail.com
> just a theory.
No, a theory is, by definition, falsifiable.
If the proposition GOD IS were false, how would you prove
it?
Well, you can prove GOD IS OMNIPOTENT is false:
"God can never prove this sentence is true."
-Ben Goren
Shrik...@gmail.com
I have to say that the existence of conciousness is the
hard problem for dogmatic reductionistic materialists.
But how does God solve the problem? It merely passes
the buck.
God: the buck stops with Satan.
Mike E. Fullerton
We are conscious. Properties can't magically arise out of thin air
unless they're illusions. We are made of the same stuff the Universe is
made of. Therefore either consciousness is an emergent illusion or the
Universe is conscious. It is unfathomable that consciousness could be an
illusion. So the best explanation is that the Universe is a conscious
entity.
andy-k
> "andy-k" wrote:
>> Mike E. Fullerton wrote:
>>> Jack wrote:
>>>> just a theory.
>>
>>> And its the best theory of explaining why we have consciousness.
>>
>> How does it do that?
>
> god is the placeholder for anything we cant explain.
Ah -- the god of the gaps.
andy-k
> andy-k wrote:
>> Mike E. Fullerton wrote:
>>> Jack wrote:
>>>> just a theory.
>>>
>>> And its the best theory of explaining why we have consciousness.
>>
>> How does it do that?
>
> We are conscious. Properties can't magically arise out of thin air
> unless they're illusions. We are made of the same stuff the Universe
> is made of. Therefore either consciousness is an emergent illusion or
> the Universe is conscious. It is unfathomable that consciousness
> could be an illusion. So the best explanation is that the Universe is
> a conscious entity.
That doesn't answer my question:
How does the idea of 'god' explain why we have consciousness?
Sir Frederick
Another interesting aspect of that behavior is the compulsive
need to personify that folk theory. Impersonal manifests would do,
but no personification seems mandatory. Kind of like momentum
used to be personified.
Mike E. Fullerton
> On Jun 6, 2:28 pm, "Mike E. Fullerton" <inforequ...@spam-killer-remove-
> techie.com> wrote:
>> Jack wrote:
>>> just a theory.
>> And its the best theory of explaining why we have consciousness. Left in
>> its dust is its only "competing" theory, emergence, which absurdly
>> claims that consciousness magically arises out of thin air when a system
>> reaches the appropriate level of organization.
>
> hard problem for dogmatic reductionistic materialists.
> But how does God solve the problem? It merely passes
> the buck.
How does it pass the buck? God was and always will be. God was and
always will be conscious. This eternity idea is hard for humans to grasp
but its far better than the violently insane alternative of things
magically arising out of nothing.
> God: the buck stops with Satan.
?
Mike E. Fullerton
> On Jun 6, 7:33 am, "Jack" <furgfurgf...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> just a theory.
>
> No, a theory is, by definition, falsifiable.
>
> If the proposition GOD IS were false, how would you prove
> it?
If there was no God we would not be conscious. We are definitely
conscious though.
Art
God ... or God stuff ... is viewed as the universal substrate. Another
label for God is the All That Is. It is "in" everything (forms
everything), and everything has mental powers or characteristics in
varying degrees ... including consciousness.
bigfl...@gmail.com
The fact that you can refer a theory, means you are consciouse of the
meaning of theory.
A step to the consciousness of actuality.
BOfL
bigfl...@gmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
Ideas are formed within our consciusness. So in that sense the idea of
unicorns is equally as plausible.
Now the actuality of God. Thats a whole different 'matter'
BOfL
andy-k
> "andy-k" wrote:
>> turtoni wrote:
>>> "andy-k" wrote:
>>>> Mike E. Fullerton wrote:
>>>>> Jack wrote:
>>>>>> just a theory.
>>>>
>>>>> And its the best theory of explaining why we have consciousness.
>>>>
>>>> How does it do that?
>>>
>>> god is the placeholder for anything we cant explain.
>>
>> Ah -- the god of the gaps.
>>
> Another interesting aspect of that behavior is the compulsive
> need to personify that folk theory. Impersonal manifests would do,
> but no personification seems mandatory. Kind of like momentum
> used to be personified.
1. In the beginning Man created god:
and in the image of Man created he him.
2. And Man gave unto god a multitude of names.
That he might be lord over all the earth when it was suited to Man.
3. And on the seventh millionth day Man rested and did
lean heavily on his god and saw that it was good.
4. And Man formed Aqualung of the dust of the ground.
And a host of others likened unto his kind.
5. And these lesser men Man did cast into the void.
And some were burned,
And some were put apart from their kind.
6. And Man became the god that he had created
and with his miracles did rule over all the earth.
7. But as all these things did come to pass,
the spirit that did cause man to create his god,
lived on within all men,
even within Aqualung.
8. And man saw it not.
9. But for Christ's sake he'd better start looking.
-- Aqualung, Jethro Tull.
andy-k
> "andy-k" wrote:
>> Mike E. Fullerton wrote:
>>> andy-k wrote:
>>>> Mike E. Fullerton wrote:
>>>>> Jack wrote:
>>>>>> just a theory.
>>
>>>>> And its the best theory of explaining why we have consciousness.
>>
>>>> How does it do that?
>>
>>> We are conscious. Properties can't magically arise out of thin air
>>> unless they're illusions. We are made of the same stuff the Universe
>>> is made of. Therefore either consciousness is an emergent illusion
>>> or the Universe is conscious. It is unfathomable that consciousness
>>> could be an illusion. So the best explanation is that the Universe
>>> is a conscious entity.
>>
>> That doesn't answer my question:
>> How does the idea of 'god' explain why we have consciousness
>
> unicorns is equally as plausible.
But nobody has proposed that the idea of 'unicorn' explains why we have
consciousness.
bigfl...@gmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
Might sound pedantic, but I would suggest there is consiousness 'of''
mental powers.
When the white blood cells 'go to war' within my body, there is
consciousness within the cell (purpose). It is 'alive'. logic
dictates that this was the case befor 'we' became aware of such
activity.
As it is with 'spiritual' conciousness, where the singularity ( I )
becomes aware of plurality, an example of the interactions of cells,
or any'thing' else that has form (including ideas yet to be manifest).
Individual people "act" in plurality,as do the cells, which is why
group activities can be observed, and also predicted.
BOfL
andy-k
> "andy-k" wrote:
>> Mike E. Fullerton wrote:
>>> andy-k wrote:
>>>> Mike E. Fullerton wrote:
>>>>> Jack wrote:
>>>>>> just a theory.
>>>>>
>>>>> And its the best theory of explaining why we have consciousness.
>>>>
>>>> How does it do that?
>>>
>>> We are conscious. Properties can't magically arise out of thin air
>>> unless they're illusions. We are made of the same stuff the Universe
>>> is made of. Therefore either consciousness is an emergent illusion
>>> or the Universe is conscious. It is unfathomable that consciousness
>>> could be an illusion. So the best explanation is that the Universe
>>> is a conscious entity.
>>
>> That doesn't answer my question:
>> How does the idea of 'god' explain why we have consciousness?
>
> God ... or God stuff ... is viewed as the universal substrate. Another
> label for God is the All That Is. It is "in" everything (forms
> everything), and everything has mental powers or characteristics in
> varying degrees ... including consciousness.
Mike proposed that consciousness is primary (in agreement with Peter Russell
in the video lecture to which you posted a link), and this is a metaphysical
stance with which I have considerable sympathy as you're well aware.
But invoking 'god' is not necessary. To claim that the word 'god' is being
used synonymously with "primary consciousness" would explain nothing
-- it's just a word substitution and not an explanation.
Mike E. Fullerton
The Universe is conscious, we get our consciousness from the Universe.
There's the explanation. God is the Universe and nothing more. What's
the problem? Using the term God makes this idea more palatable to the
religious that believe in the absurd myth of a personal god. Its a
bridge from religion to science.
andy-k
> andy-k wrote:
>> Mike proposed that consciousness is primary (in agreement with Peter
>> Russell in the video lecture to which you posted a link), and this
>> is a metaphysical stance with which I have considerable sympathy as
>> you're well aware. But invoking 'god' is not necessary. To claim that the
>> word 'god' is being used synonymously with "primary consciousness" would
>> explain nothing -- it's just a word substitution and not an explanation.
>
> The Universe is conscious, we get our consciousness from the Universe.
> There's the explanation.
That's enough.
> God is the Universe and nothing more.
Unnecessary and unproductive word substitution.
> What's the problem?
The word 'god' is the problem. It means different things to different
cultures, and to different people within a culture. It breeds nothing but
misunderstanding, disagreement, and animosity. Christians perpetrated the
Crusades in the name of their 'god'. Muslims perpetrated 911 in the name of
their 'god'. No doubt your 'god' has nothing to do with their 'gods', so why
contaminate your metaphysical position by invoking the same word that they
use?
> Using the term God makes this idea more palatable to the
> religious that believe in the absurd myth of a personal god.
Tell that to Osama bin Laden.
> Its a bridge from religion to science.
There is no science of consciousness.
Art
However, I'm unsatisfied (as you should know) with simply stopping
at pansychism. In my view the universal substrate has other
mental characteristics as well. Its psychic nature is explanatory (in
a rough way at least) of all paranormal phenomena. Also, in a rough
way, this psychic interconnectness of everything may well account for
nonlocality (entanglement) in physics. But also, spiritual realms and
other material systems of reality are built out of the same substrate.
It may be that everything actually exists only in the mind of God. Our
minds are simply portions of God's mind.
Art
http://home.ptd.net/~artnpeg
Shrik...@gmail.com
techie.com> wrote:
> Shrikeb...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Jun 6, 2:28 pm, "Mike E. Fullerton" <inforequ...@spam-killer-remove-
> > techie.com> wrote:
> >> Jack wrote:
> >>> just a theory.
> >> And its the best theory of explaining why we have consciousness. Left in
> >> its dust is its only "competing" theory, emergence, which absurdly
> >> claims that consciousness magically arises out of thin air when a system
> >> reaches the appropriate level of organization.
>
> > I have to say that the existence of conciousness is the
> > hard problem for dogmatic reductionistic materialists.
> > But how does God solve the problem? It merely passes
> > the buck.
>
> How does it pass the buck?
It passes the buck, because it is essentially this argument:
since I cannot explain conciousness algorithmically, it means
conciousness requires this god thing. (I am not sure how
that follows anyway.) But if God is concious, we're still left
with the same unanswerable question: whither comes
God's conciousness?
> God was and always will be. God was and
> always will be conscious.
Note that conciousness experiences time sequentially.
Time is not random access. Conciousness has to
experience the past before the present. If that past
is infinite, and God's conciousness had to experience
all that infinite (whether countably infinite or uncountably
infinite) series of moments. If there were an infinite
number of such moments to experience in the past,
the present could never come to be. That is, it would
take forever before now ever happened.
> This eternity idea is hard for humans to grasp
> but its far better than the violently insane alternative of things
> magically arising out of nothing.
Why is that? I fail to see any difference in terms of
their unexplicability.
> > God: the buck stops with Satan.
>
> ?
Well, you know, God created Evil, but somehow
Satan takes the blame.
Shrik...@gmail.com
techie.com> wrote:
> Shrikeb...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Jun 6, 7:33 am, "Jack" <furgfurgf...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> just a theory.
>
> > No, a theory is, by definition, falsifiable.
>
> > If the proposition GOD IS were false, how would you prove
> > it?
>
> If there was no God we would not be conscious.
This simply does not follow. Please try to be
rigorous here. You are going to have to prove that,
not simply assert it. I mean, if you want to assume
it on faith, that's one thing....
> We are definitely
> conscious though.
And how do you even prove that one?
Maybe I am just a Google Usenet bot.
Mike E. Fullerton
> On Jun 7, 7:27 am, "Mike E. Fullerton" <inforequ...@spam-killer-remove-
> techie.com> wrote:
>> Shrikeb...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On Jun 6, 2:28 pm, "Mike E. Fullerton" <inforequ...@spam-killer-remove-
>>> techie.com> wrote:
>>>> Jack wrote:
>>>>> just a theory.
>>>> And its the best theory of explaining why we have consciousness. Left in
>>>> its dust is its only "competing" theory, emergence, which absurdly
>>>> claims that consciousness magically arises out of thin air when a system
>>>> reaches the appropriate level of organization.
>>> I have to say that the existence of conciousness is the
>>> hard problem for dogmatic reductionistic materialists.
>>> But how does God solve the problem? It merely passes
>>> the buck.
>> How does it pass the buck?
>
> It passes the buck, because it is essentially this argument:
> since I cannot explain conciousness algorithmically, it means
> conciousness requires this god thing. (I am not sure how
> that follows anyway.) But if God is concious, we're still left
> with the same unanswerable question: whither comes
> God's conciousness?
Consciousness doesn't require God, consciousness is God. Whither comes
the Universe? Either you believe the Universe was magically created out
of nothing or it was and always will be. God = Universe.
>> God was and always will be. God was and
>> always will be conscious.
>
> Note that conciousness experiences time sequentially.
> Time is not random access. Conciousness has to
> experience the past before the present. If that past
> is infinite, and God's conciousness had to experience
> all that infinite (whether countably infinite or uncountably
> infinite) series of moments. If there were an infinite
> number of such moments to experience in the past,
> the present could never come to be. That is, it would
> take forever before now ever happened.
The problem is that the past is never experienced, only the present.
>> This eternity idea is hard for humans to grasp
>> but its far better than the violently insane alternative of things
>> magically arising out of nothing.
>
> Why is that? I fail to see any difference in terms of
> their unexplicability.
Things arising from nothing violates conservation laws. What laws does
eternity violate?
>>> God: the buck stops with Satan.
>> ?
>
> Well, you know, God created Evil, but somehow
> Satan takes the blame.
Did you create your foot? No. Likewise, God didn't create anything
either. Its all God. Satan is a silly myth with no basis in reality,
just the idea of a personal god.
Shrikeback
"Mike E. Fullerton" <infor...@spam-killer-remove-techie.com> wrote in
message news:mCJ2k.15170$C12.13511@pd7urf3no...
The choice is not between assuming the universe was magically created
out of nothing or it always was. The reason we have cosmologies with
the Big Bang is simple observation of the expansion of the universe.
The Big Bang does not imply creation of the universe out of nothing.
There was no moment before the Big Bang because it is the point at which
time comes into existence. The Big Bang is not nothing, it is the point in
time at which the universe was the size of a dimensionless point.
>>> God was and always will be. God was and
>>> always will be conscious.
>>
>> Note that conciousness experiences time sequentially.
>> Time is not random access. Conciousness has to
>> experience the past before the present. If that past
>> is infinite, and God's conciousness had to experience
>> all that infinite (whether countably infinite or uncountably
>> infinite) series of moments. If there were an infinite
>> number of such moments to experience in the past,
>> the present could never come to be. That is, it would
>> take forever before now ever happened.
>
> The problem is that the past is never experienced, only the present.
Simple semantics. The past IS never experienced, you are
correct. The point is that it WAS experienced. That's just
basic grammar. If the past was not experienced as a present
moment at one time, it's reality is questionable, assuming
there really has been a concious observer all along. A past
that never really happened is not a real past.
>>> This eternity idea is hard for humans to grasp
>>> but its far better than the violently insane alternative of things
>>> magically arising out of nothing.
>>
>> Why is that? I fail to see any difference in terms of
>> their unexplicability.
>
> Things arising from nothing violates conservation laws.
We expect that the uncertainty principle winds up allowing
certain violations of the conservation laws, for brief periods
of time. In any case, if the net energy of the universe is
zero, there is no violation of conservation laws. For this
to be the case, the negative gravitational potential energy
of the universe would need to cancel out the positive
energy.
But in any case, it is not the case that the Big Bang
Theory claims everything came from nothing. It is
rather that everything came from a single dimensionless
point, a singularity.
> What laws does eternity violate?
The laws of basic logic.
Each previous moment had to have actually happened
before the present moment. If all of the previoius moments
are infinite, it implies that the present moment could
never happen, since it would take an infinite sequence
of moments before it happened. That is the definition
of "never".
>>>> God: the buck stops with Satan.
>>> ?
>>
>> Well, you know, God created Evil, but somehow
>> Satan takes the blame.
>
> Did you create your foot? No. Likewise, God didn't create anything either.
> Its all God. Satan is a silly myth with no basis in reality, just the idea
> of a personal god.
Thank Allah we've at least straightened that out.
Mike E. Fullerton
> Mike E. Fullerton wrote:
>> andy-k wrote:
>>> Mike proposed that consciousness is primary (in agreement with Peter
>>> Russell in the video lecture to which you posted a link), and this
>>> is a metaphysical stance with which I have considerable sympathy as
>>> you're well aware. But invoking 'god' is not necessary. To claim that the
>>> word 'god' is being used synonymously with "primary consciousness" would
>>> explain nothing -- it's just a word substitution and not an explanation.
>> The Universe is conscious, we get our consciousness from the Universe.
>> There's the explanation.
>
> That's enough.
>
>> God is the Universe and nothing more.
>
> Unnecessary and unproductive word substitution.
Very necessary and very productive if you want to make people understand
that a big part of all religion is metaphorical at best. Its also the
simplest way to portray the Universe as conscious.
>> What's the problem?
>
> The word 'god' is the problem. It means different things to different
> cultures, and to different people within a culture. It breeds nothing but
> misunderstanding, disagreement, and animosity. Christians perpetrated the
> Crusades in the name of their 'god'. Muslims perpetrated 911 in the name of
> their 'god'. No doubt your 'god' has nothing to do with their 'gods', so why
> contaminate your metaphysical position by invoking the same word that they
> use?
Because I know its easier for people to accept something if it has
resonance to them. Has science ever been used to unleash horrors upon
humanity?
>> Using the term God makes this idea more palatable to the
>> religious that believe in the absurd myth of a personal god.
>
> Tell that to Osama bin Laden.
?
>> Its a bridge from religion to science.
>
> There is no science of consciousness.
Irrelevant. A bridge gets you from one place to
the other.
Day Brown
She has been known by lotsa names, The Great Earth Mother, Gaia, Potnia, Sophia, Dianna, Ianna, Hecate, Hera, Venus, Kali,... but there's no record of anyone ever being murdered cause they got the name wrong.
Could Osama Ben Ladin, the Jihadim, or Christian whackos claim justification for what they do in *HER* name? I dont _think_ so.
A lotta good people contribute money to religion. Get them to support the faith in the Goddess, and the above whackos would not be able to use that organization and its funding for their own violent purposes. You want peace? Worship the Goddess.
andy-k
All hail the Goddess. But be warned --
hell hath no fury like a woman scorned ;-)
andy-k
> andy-k wrote:
>> Mike E. Fullerton wrote:
>>> andy-k wrote:
>>>> Mike proposed that consciousness is primary (in agreement with
>>>> Peter Russell in the video lecture to which you posted a link),
>>>> and this is a metaphysical stance with which I have considerable
>>>> sympathy as you're well aware. But invoking 'god' is not necessary. To
>>>> claim that the word 'god' is being used synonymously with "primary
>>>> consciousness" would explain nothing -- it's just a word substitution
>>>> and not an explanation.
>>>
>>> The Universe is conscious, we get our consciousness from the
>>> Universe. There's the explanation.
>>
>> That's enough.
>>
>>> God is the Universe and nothing more.
>>
>> Unnecessary and unproductive word substitution.
>
> Very necessary and very productive if you want to make people
> understand that a big part of all religion is metaphorical at best.
The interpretation of scripture is a minefield.
I wish you luck with your endeavor -- your time is yours to waste.
> Its also the simplest way to portray the Universe as conscious.
The simplest way to portray the universe as conscious is to say
that the universe is conscious. Appropriating the word 'god'
serves only to import all of the confusion surrounding that word.
>>> What's the problem?
>>
>> The word 'god' is the problem. It means different things to different
>> cultures, and to different people within a culture. It breeds
>> nothing but misunderstanding, disagreement, and animosity.
>> Christians perpetrated the Crusades in the name of their 'god'.
>> Muslims perpetrated 911 in the name of their 'god'. No doubt your
>> 'god' has nothing to do with their 'gods', so why contaminate your
>> metaphysical position by invoking the same word that they use?
>
> Because I know its easier for people to accept something if it has
> resonance to them.
The word 'god' means different things to different cultures, and to
different people within a culture. Trying to convince them all that their
understanding of the word is wrong and yours is the only true 'god'
sounds familiar.
> Has science ever been used to unleash horrors upon humanity?
Yes. No confusion there at all.
>>> Using the term God makes this idea more palatable to the
>>> religious that believe in the absurd myth of a personal god.
>>
>> Tell that to Osama bin Laden.
>
> ?
Let me know what you didn't understand and I'll explain more simply.
>>> Its a bridge from religion to science.
>>
>> There is no science of consciousness.
>
> Irrelevant. A bridge gets you from one place to the other.
You wrote that the word 'god' is synonymous with primary consciousness,
and I responded. It is your subsequent introduction of science that is
irrelevant here, since there is no science of consciousness.
Shrikeback
"Day Brown" <d...@daybrown.org> wrote in message
news:1213040...@alibistextweb.com...
> There is no god. But there is a Goddess, and that solves lotsa problems.
If deities are coming anatomically correct these
days, I'd say the biggest problem with males is
their tendency to spray. But you get them fixed,
and that's no problem.
Anyway, spaying or neutering your pet is the
humane thing to do what with all the feral gods
starving out there.
> She has been known by lotsa names, The Great Earth
> Mother, Gaia, Potnia, Sophia, Dianna, Ianna, Hecate,
> Hera, Venus, Kali,... but there's no record of anyone
> ever being murdered cause they got the name wrong.
In this religion-eat-religion world, I really doubt that nobody
was ever murdered because they got the name wrong.
On the other hand, it's pretty obvious that Goddess-worship
didn't have what it take to survive in the darwinistic struggle
of memes.
> Could Osama Ben Ladin, the Jihadim, or Christian
> whackos claim justification for what they do in
> *HER* name? I dont _think_ so.
Unless Mary, Mother of God counts.
> A lotta good people contribute money to religion.
> Get them to support the faith in the Goddess,
Would they change what they call it from "tithing" to
"alimony"?
> and the
> above whackos would not be able to use that
> organization and its funding for their own violent
> purposes. You want peace? Worship the Goddess.
I always say, meet the new deity, same as the old
deity.