What is God?

[Mudhammam]

I'm not sure that all the characteristics of our subjective life arose or were selected for on the basis of evolutionary pressures. Some things may be by-products of other things which were selected for that way. I wouldn't think that our extreme self-awareness would convey much survival advantage. What good does it do us in the natural world to go about wondering whether it is better to be or not to be? (What the hell kind of question is that evolutionarily speaking?)

For that matter, why do we require a concept of "me"? Does any other animal have this? The whole personal narrative which adds up to our having a history, a character, a personality and the rest of what we might call a sense of self .. what purpose does that serve? Is it even real?

If the brain can come up with the confabulation we call our 'self' why shouldn't it be able to manage the one we call 'god'? What purpose does either one really serve? Naturally once we have either, if there is one we should want to keep it would be our sense of self. But realizing our organisms produce both, shouldn't we at least be curious about what function the latter might serve? Anyone interested in self discovery should definitely open that door. What we don't fully understand is breath taking. I'm not interested in putting so many parameters on it from the start when we know so little. No babies will be thrown out with the water on my watch.

I agree that some things may be by-products, and the ability to wonder "whether it is better to be or not to be" may have simply arisen from witnessing the peaceful expressions of the dead, equating it with deep sleep or the notion of pre-birth, and contrasting it with experiences of pain, which may not have seemed worth whatever goal an individual had. Likewise, I think the concept of "me," which to some degree does seem to exist in animals of higher brain function such as chimps, dolphins, pigs, etc., may be nothing more than recognizing the physical space that one occupies in contrast with other animate objects. Evolution likely selected for organisms that were good at manipulating others to serve their own interests until one day organisms were made to realize that within their "self" they had similar powers of manipulation.

In the same way, god is another way we may have thought we could manipulate nature before we really knew how to manipulate nature. As to whether or not the self is real, I think it depends on what is meant. The idea of me as a person wholly separate from my divisible, infinitesimally small, physical parts is pure illusion... but the being that is recognized by my brain as me, with my own history, memories, goals, etc., that is real... But at least THAT'S a debate worth having.