(December 26, 2012 at 10:25 pm)Undeceived Wrote:(December 26, 2012 at 5:21 pm)pocaracas Wrote: If there's such a thing as "nonmaterial consciousness", and knowing that people have been believing in gods and souls for over 10.000 years, how did those people from 10 thousand years ago discover it?
I’ll give you two ways nonmaterial consciousness may have occurred to ancient humans. First, some probably did not discover it, but believed in it because the idea seemed logical to them. This is a logicality that Christians attribute to the Creator, but basically the idea says that humans are able to grasp reality because their perspective of reality is outside of reality. They would know it not with a physical feeling, but by observing the fact they were able to reason at all. Science today still does not know how humans have consciousness. One issue: how do we make choices as opposed to reacting in ways predetermined by our DNA? Another: how does one "think" in the moment? People thousands of years ago understood these conundrums on a basic level, which is all they needed. They understood the uniqueness of consciousness. Today, many people are so blinded by their belief that science has all the answers that they don't even question the logistics of consciousness (I have been in that camp myself). Those thousands of years ago did not have to think very hard to come up with the concept of nonmaterial consciousness, nor did they even have to name it. They merely assumed. And when people naturally assume something, we need to look at their origins to find out why. I think we can agree that Biblical creation explains their behavior better than evolution.
But there is still one other group of people! These are the followers of Yahweh, who learned of their spirit through divine revelation. You may argue they know it through external means, but that is not the case. Their physical experience wakes the spiritual inside, and the faith resulting from the experience is evidence. As Hebrews 11:1 explains, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." To put it another way, consciousness itself cannot be observed by our consciousness. Instead, we see the fruit of a nonmaterial spirit--the fruits of the spirit love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. That is how we can tell when someone has "discovered" their nonmaterial self. When they change from the inside out. The emergence of these virtues can give us certain physical “feelings” but the nonmaterial consciousness is the cause, not the feeling itself. Feelings do not cause other feelings. They arise from the depths of our unknown mind. Can you tell me where they come from, Pocaracas? We observe what happens in our brain when we have feelings, but what is the ultimate source of any given feeling? If you say everything is a reaction to our surroundings, why can we train ourselves to react with different feelings? I may feel anger the first time I prick my finger, but enough concentration and determination and I can feel anything I want. How is that mere chemical reaction?
Disclaimer to readers: Please don’t reply “That’s not true” or “Show me evidence” for any of the above. By the very definition of nonmaterial, all evidence is personal. This is a Biblical-based explanation for how people most likely discovered nonmaterial consciousness. Reply with logic, as this is a logic-only discussion.
I appreciate this explanation. It was nice. I liked it.
But it seems to me to boil down to "they made it up".
You classify all feelings as nonmaterial and ask where they come from. I go one level further up and tell you that all abstract thought is nonmaterial... well, no it doesn't seem to be.
Thoughts come from the brain, sometimes influenced by certain hormones.
And the brain is a wonderfully complex machine that works in, as yet, mysterious ways....
Such complexity can bring about all the thoughts, emotions, memories, etc. that some people attribute to a nonmaterial consciousness, but we are not yet qualified to provide the exact mechanism which generates these thought processes.
