It's a God Theory
November 10, 2010 at 2:56 pm
(This post was last modified: November 10, 2010 at 3:05 pm by Rayaan.)
I've been thinking about the possibility of such a concept of God (as I'm about to explain) for quite a long time. And I think it's a reasonable explanation for His existence.
I don't know if this idea is 100% true or not, but at least it makes sense to me from a philosophical point of view. After reading the post, you can explain what's wrong with it or simply tell me why you don't agree with what I wrote. Ask me questions if anything else needs to be clarified.
First, here's a question:
Why doesn't a book or a table, for example, have the ability of self-perception like we do? Or to put it differently, what is it that makes a certain collection of inanimate matter be able to come to life and then perceive itself (such as the material in our bodies) whereas many other objects around us do not have such an ability (i.e. self-perception)?
I can only think of one possible answer to this question, which deals with the idea of self-reference. I'm not really concerned about all the DNA stuff and the chemical ingredients of life because individual atoms, or simply matter itself, cannot be the only thing which is responsible for the awareness of ourselves. There is something more abstract in the universe that causes a collection of lifeless particles to turn back on itself and to perceive itself and thus becoming alive. This is basically what is happening during the creation of life, which is, a type of self-referencing (or a feedback loop) in nature.
However, I believe that such a self-referential nature of the universe is something abstract while also being something "alive" at the same time. Why? Because this is what allows matter to become alive, and to know itself and to learn about itself, so the underlying system should also be something alive itself (even though maybe it doesn't have any physical properties). It can also have knowledge and emotions just like we do, because the self-referential system has a mind of it's own, or a unique type of self, which makes it possible for us to have knowledge and emotions in the first place (because it can refer to itself). To me, this is a rational explanation for the mind-like nature of God in the sense that He is some kind of a pre-existing, self-referential system out of which all the types of awareness and mental faculties came from.
If we accept this idea, and if there are no alternate explanations (for how inanimate matter can become animate), then this would mean that there is an element of self-referentiality everywhere in the universe (which has a mind of its own), and I think that's what makes it possible for a "self" to come out of "non-selves" like the atoms in our bodies. To summarize this idea, here's a quote from a book entitled I am a Strange Loop, by Douglas Hofstadter, in which he says: "In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self reference" (Hofstadter, 363).
This is the closest philosophical theory that expresses the reason for my belief in a personal God and why it's even necessarily true for Him to exist.
I don't know if this idea is 100% true or not, but at least it makes sense to me from a philosophical point of view. After reading the post, you can explain what's wrong with it or simply tell me why you don't agree with what I wrote. Ask me questions if anything else needs to be clarified.
First, here's a question:
Why doesn't a book or a table, for example, have the ability of self-perception like we do? Or to put it differently, what is it that makes a certain collection of inanimate matter be able to come to life and then perceive itself (such as the material in our bodies) whereas many other objects around us do not have such an ability (i.e. self-perception)?
I can only think of one possible answer to this question, which deals with the idea of self-reference. I'm not really concerned about all the DNA stuff and the chemical ingredients of life because individual atoms, or simply matter itself, cannot be the only thing which is responsible for the awareness of ourselves. There is something more abstract in the universe that causes a collection of lifeless particles to turn back on itself and to perceive itself and thus becoming alive. This is basically what is happening during the creation of life, which is, a type of self-referencing (or a feedback loop) in nature.
However, I believe that such a self-referential nature of the universe is something abstract while also being something "alive" at the same time. Why? Because this is what allows matter to become alive, and to know itself and to learn about itself, so the underlying system should also be something alive itself (even though maybe it doesn't have any physical properties). It can also have knowledge and emotions just like we do, because the self-referential system has a mind of it's own, or a unique type of self, which makes it possible for us to have knowledge and emotions in the first place (because it can refer to itself). To me, this is a rational explanation for the mind-like nature of God in the sense that He is some kind of a pre-existing, self-referential system out of which all the types of awareness and mental faculties came from.
If we accept this idea, and if there are no alternate explanations (for how inanimate matter can become animate), then this would mean that there is an element of self-referentiality everywhere in the universe (which has a mind of its own), and I think that's what makes it possible for a "self" to come out of "non-selves" like the atoms in our bodies. To summarize this idea, here's a quote from a book entitled I am a Strange Loop, by Douglas Hofstadter, in which he says: "In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self reference" (Hofstadter, 363).
This is the closest philosophical theory that expresses the reason for my belief in a personal God and why it's even necessarily true for Him to exist.
