What is God?

[The Grand Nudger]

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?

Extreme self awareness doesn't have to be applied to such a question (you and I might agree that it's a waste of time, but even if it were.objectively..meh). You can't think of any advantage that extreme self awareness confers to human beings?

How do you predict the actions of others? Whats the very base of the chain?

[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.

[psychoslice]

God is a concept that we measure our pain. John Lennon

[Mudhammam]

By the way, I think you would love this book, Whateverist:


There's a free version of it online somewhere I can dig up if you're interested. It's basically selections of fiction by various writers that deal with the self from very different philosophical approaches.

[ignoramus]

Pickup, why would you say the mind is predominantly physical?
The brain is. The thought processes are are derivative of the brain and without the brain, there is no mind.
Are you saying that our feelings and morality is just how the electrons bounce around inside our head and nothing else. I'm not disagreeing with you, at the end of the day, that's exactly what they are.
I certainly don't believe in an externally installed "soul".

The non living atoms from the periodic table which are unintelligently rearranged to make the entity known as "ignoramus" have processed the electrons in his brain in such a pattern that he want you to know that "he is now fucking depressed".

Fuck me! Is that all we really are! Being an ape sounds a lot more sophisticated.

[Mudhammam]

Pickup, why would you say the mind is predominantly physical?
The brain is. The thought processes are are derivative of the brain and without the brain, there is no mind.
Are you saying that our feelings and morality is just how the electrons bounce around inside our head and nothing else. I'm not disagreeing with you, at the end of the day, that's exactly what they are.
I certainly don't believe in an externally installed "soul".

The non living atoms from the periodic table which are unintelligently rearranged to make the entity known as "ignoramus" have processed the electrons in his brain in such a pattern that he want you to know that "he is now fucking depressed".

Fuck me! Is that all we really are! Being an ape sounds a lot more sophisticated.

It seems like you answered your own question quite adequately... but why despair? What you just described is magical! Real magic! Which is, of course, not real magic at all.

[Confused Ape]

Neruotheology is still in its infancy but so far, there's no evidence of a single God spot in the brain. It seems that different parts of the brain are involved in different experiences.

As for what God is, it depends on the particular concept because there are many of them. Brahman, for example, is absolute reality which both manifests as everything in the universe while transcending the universe. Physicists are still trying to figure out what the absolute reality of the universe is.

[Whateverist]

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?

Extreme self awareness doesn't have to be applied to such a question (you and I might agree that it's a waste of time, but even if it were.objectively..meh). You can't think of any advantage that extreme self awareness confers to human beings?

How do you predict the actions of others? Whats the very base of the chain?

Exactly. It has always seemed to me that our mental capacities are way overkill for the problems of survival. It is only in conflicts with our own kind that we would need what we've got.

[The Grand Nudger]

Exactly. It has always seemed to me that our mental capacities are way overkill for the problems of survival. It is only in conflicts with our own kind that we would need what we've got.

And yet many of us still die, largely the same way and for the same reasons as any other point in our history. We don't just "need what we've got" when we fight. We need it when we love as well.

[ShaMan]

"Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?"

(bold added)

It's right there in the book - it's all inside our minds. We're supposed to know it.