Consciousness: Intention and Purpose

[Simon Adams]

I agree, but that faith means nothing if its object is beyond all experience and human striving for true knowledge. What you describe above is a God who is entirely within Consciousness, since we can only have experience of and relationship with a Being within Consciousness. We probably just got mixed up on the terminology being used.

I think Robert has the same concerns I do

Just as idealism convincingly shows that matter is the image of consciousness, when we say we are made in the image of god, this means we are less fundamental in a similar but not understandable way. Although physicalists generally can’t ‘get’ how matter can be the same as the stuff of perception, for idealists it’s something that we can grasp as we have comprehended matter ‘from the inside’, with spiritual vision.

However when it comes to god, we are not able to grasp him ‘from the inside’ in the same way. We are all like the physicalists trying to understand how matter can be in mind, we have no way of grasping how god can be in consciousness, as it naturally appears to us that all that is, all that can be, is consciousness. The realm of consciousness as seen properly IS spiritual, it IS sacred, but it is not god. If you think consciousness is absolutely fundamental, this will make no sense. But what Robert is saying is my understanding too. In neoplatonic terms, consciousness is still emanation, it flows from him and it is in him, but it is not him.

[AshvinP]

I agree, but that faith means nothing if its object is beyond all experience and human striving for true knowledge. What you describe above is a God who is entirely within Consciousness, since we can only have experience of and relationship with a Being within Consciousness. We probably just got mixed up on the terminology being used.

I think Robert has the same concerns I do

Just as idealism convincingly shows that matter is the image of consciousness, when we say we are made in the image of god, this means we are less fundamental in a similar but not understandable way. Although physicalists generally can’t ‘get’ how matter can be the same as the stuff of perception, for idealists it’s something that we can grasp as we have comprehended matter ‘from the inside’, with spiritual vision.

However when it comes to god, we are not able to grasp him ‘from the inside’ in the same way. We are all like the physicalists trying to understand how matter can be in mind, we have no way of grasping how god can be in consciousness, as it naturally appears to us that all that is, all that can be, is consciousness. The realm of consciousness as seen properly IS spiritual, it IS sacred, but it is not god. If you think consciousness is absolutely fundamental, this will make no sense. But what Robert is saying is my understanding too. In neoplatonic terms, consciousness is still emanation, it flows from him and it is in him, but it is not him.

Let us remember the main reasons why the physicalist is wrong - because they posit a realm of primordial non-conscious stuff that gives rise to and interacts with conscious stuff. They say the primordial non-conscious stuff is unlike any qualia of our experience, and the latter is simply added on by each individual's brain. How is your view of a wholly transcendent God any different?

Also, just to be clear, when I speak of MAL or Consciousness in this manner, I am referring to the highest possible Unity of ideal relations. I do not add on any assumptions about what MAL is like or what attributes it possesses. Only that it is not fundamentally beyond our ability to experience and know.

[Robert Arvay]

Eugene wrote

Right, but how do you know that such Divine mystery as "nothing" even exists at all? May be it's just your fantasy?
I think the biggest Divine mystery is that Consciousness exists. The existence of Consciousness is definitely not a fantasy - we are all conscious so we know it is real. But how it exists is absolutely ineffable mystery.

Excellently stated. I don't know anything, except as you say, that I am conscious.
If it is a fundamental reality, irreducible to component parts, and IMO independent of causation,
then it is perhaps (part of) the ultimate mystery.

As I like to say, consciousness is the only phenomenon known to us that observes itself.
.

[Robert Arvay]

Simon wrote:

The realm of consciousness as seen properly IS spiritual, it IS sacred, but it is not god. If you think consciousness is absolutely fundamental, this will make no sense. But what Robert is saying is my understanding too. In neoplatonic terms, consciousness is still emanation, it flows from him and it is in him, but it is not him.

This is pretty close to the way I think of it. I do think that consciousness is a fundamental, but not the final essence. In a similar way, the electron is a fundamental physical particle (wave), but not the final essence. Semantics, perhaps, but I think we are both on the same track.
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[Eugene I]

This is pretty close to the way I think of it. I do think that consciousness is a fundamental, but not the final essence. In a similar way, the electron is a fundamental physical particle (wave), but not the final essence. Semantics, perhaps, but I think we are both on the same track.
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Robert and Simon, you position in philosophical terms is close to Kantian transcendentalism: God in its ultimate essence is even more fundamental than consciousness. So, God in its essence is a "thing in itself" for us, non-accessible by any means (experientially or cognitively) . This position is perfectly in accordance with the traditional Catholic-Orthodox Christian theology, so it is understandable why it is the view of your preference. However, there are some things to note here:
1. Technically it is not idealism anymore, but rather something like "transcendental monism" or "property monism".
2. We are back to "Kantian divide" and dualism between the divine transcendent essence and world's immanent aspects.

This basically means that, as opposed to creatures who possess consciousness but have no ability to know the final essence, God is super-conscious in a sense that he is conscious like us, but in addition has an ability to know the final essence (and plus many other powers and abilities that we do not have). This is of course a possibility that we can not refute, but in philosophical terms, it is not idealism anymore. From philosophical perspective, as Bernardo would likely argue, it is not parsimonious, because postulating such extra "final essence" level of ontological structure of reality is not necessary. In simple words, it is an ontology with "one more turtle" below the fundamental level of consciousness.

[AshvinP]

This is pretty close to the way I think of it. I do think that consciousness is a fundamental, but not the final essence. In a similar way, the electron is a fundamental physical particle (wave), but not the final essence. Semantics, perhaps, but I think we are both on the same track.
-

Robert and Simon, you position in philosophical terms is close to Kantian transcendentalism: God in its ultimate essence is even more fundamental than consciousness. So, God in its essence is a "thing in itself" for us, non-accessible by any means (experientially or cognitively) . This position is perfectly in accordance with the traditional Catholic-Orthodox theology, so it is understandable why it is the view of your preference. However, there are some things to note here:
1. Technically it is not idealism anymore, but rather something like "transcendental monism" or "property monism".
2. We are back to "Kantian divide" and dualism between the divine transcendent essence and world's immanent aspects.

This basically means that, as opposed to creatures who possess consciousness but have no ability to know the final essence, God is super-conscious in a sense that he is conscious like us, but in addition has an ability to know the final essence (and plus many other powers and abilities that we do not have). This is of course a possibility that we can not refute, but in philosophical terms, it is not idealism anymore. From philosophical perspective, as Bernardo would likely argue, it is not parsimonious, because postulating such extra "final essence" level of ontological structure of reality is not necessary. In simple words, it is an ontology with "one more turtle" below the fundamental level of consciousness.

Well said! The importance of this distinction cannot really be over-stated. It is precisely because it seems so trivial and a matter of "common [religious] sense" that it has become so pernicious.

To recognize true reality, as against the illusion due to perceiving, has at all times been the goal of human thinking. Scientific thought has made great efforts to recognize reality in percepts by discovering the systematic connections between them. Where, however, it was believed that the connections ascertained by human thinking had only subjective validity, the true basis of unity was sought in some entity lying beyond our world of experience (an inferred God, will, absolute spirit, etc.).
...
Man finds no such primal ground of existence whose counsels he might investigate in order to learn from it the aims to which he has to direct his actions. He is thrown back upon himself. It is he himself who must give content to his action.

[Eugene I]

Well said!

Hey, we are in the same camp now, Ashvin

[AshvinP]

Well said!

Hey, we are in the same camp now, Ashvin

Cheers! We can enjoy it while it lasts

[Simon Adams]

Robert and Simon, you position in philosophical terms is close to Kantian transcendentalism: God in its ultimate essence is even more fundamental than consciousness. So, God in its essence is a "thing in itself" for us, non-accessible by any means (experientially or cognitively) . This position is perfectly in accordance with the traditional Catholic-Orthodox theology, so it is understandable why it is the view of your preference. However, there are some things to note here:
1. Technically it is not idealism anymore, but rather something like "transcendental monism" or "property monism".
2. We are back to "Kantian divide" and dualism between the divine transcendent essence and world's immanent aspects.

Yes and my biggest problem with Kant is that he lumped everything that was not directly observable together ontologically, in his quest to confine reason, to try to make philosophy scientific. It seems to be that apart from any divide he created, he merged two types of differences together;

1) Phenomena versus “things-in-themselves”
2) “Things-in-themselves” versus god

For the first I would say there is no fundamental duality, phenomena is like that observable aspect of noumena. The second I do see as a kind of duality (though not fundamentally as only god is fundamental), but lumping god in the category of ‘things’ goes against everything we knew about god for thousands of years. Did he give any justification for this mixing that has allowed it to stand in ontological discussions ever since?

This basically means that, as opposed to creatures who possess consciousness but have no ability to know the final essence, God is super-conscious in a sense that he is conscious like us, but in addition has an ability to know the final essence (and plus many other powers and abilities that we do not have).

I don’t think this is a correct way of looking at it. We have senses and develop understanding through experience, like we add something to ourselves. God just is unrestricted understanding. There is nothing he experiences to then understand. To even call it consciousness is really a mistake, although of course from our perspective consciousness is the only understanding we have of perception.

This is of course a possibility that we can not refute, but in philosophical terms, it is not idealism anymore. From philosophical perspective, as Bernardo would likely argue, it is not parsimonious, because postulating such extra "final essence" level of ontological structure of reality is not necessary. In simple words, it is an ontology with "one more turtle" below the fundamental level of consciousness.

Yes and I can respect that way of looking at things, if you don’t have faith in judeo-christian scripture it’s an understandable conclusion. It leaves you with some problems in terms of ‘first cause’, eternal, “simple” etc, but those are perhaps not obvious from a philosophical perspective. You also end up with a god that acts out of necessity, which I would argue makes the term “god” meaningless. However for those who believe in scripture, it’s clearly creation ex nihilo (out of nothing), not creation ex deo (out of god). Even Jesus asking people to pray becomes, if not completely meaningless, at least weird.

[Eugene I]

Simon, yes, I understand you position. For me it remains an unsolvable mystery, at least in my current human state. I'm open to both possibilities. yet leaning to the consciousness-based-idealism (for a number of reasons).