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neurocomp2003
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is it a substance that know human can detect or define?
Royce said:What substance is consciousness made of? Can humans detect it? To hard? How about thought or ideas, philosophy itself? Can we detect it?
Royce said:What substance is consciousness made of? Can humans detect it? To hard? How about thought or ideas, philosophy itself? Can we detect it?
neurocomp2003 said:what substance is god/gods made of? is it a substance that know human can detect or define?
selfAdjoint said:If this is just a call for opinions, I vote for No Substance, it's a process. And I also vote that it can't be detected by a third party mechanism. (Some might dipute that, but I reject supernatural faith, Inspiration, inner light, and all that as sources of truth).
neurocomp2003 said:obviously i play final arbiter to my own beliefs...
neurocomp2003 said:but religious people seem to just assume that god exist suffice and do not question what he is made out of
neurocomp2003 said:...and if in the event that he is made of dr.pepper..then we should look more into the substance that dr.pepper is made out of
neurocomp2003 said:or does this question not matter in t he religious world?
neurocomp2003 said:and how does he change back and forth between forms of communication between his world and ours for there must be a way to jump back as he does.
neurocomp2003 said:if not then do we live in a "matrix" world in that the mechanism to which we believe move in so called spacetime are artificial and run on a framebyframe basis like a computer game.
selfAdjoint said:If this is just a call for opinions,
I vote for No Substance, it's a process.
And I also vote that it can't be detected by a third party mechanism.
(Some might dispute that, but I reject supernatural faith, Inspiration, inner light, and all that as sources of truth). I think the processes of our brain and body kid us along (delay between potentials and consciousness, bllindsight, etc. etc.), and it's a mistake to take first order appearances in your own awareness too seriously.
WilliamLP said:I could imagine that we could make progress figuring out how conscious behaviour emerges. For example, looking at feedback loops in the brain to the senses, or the 'self' as a symbol, or things along those lines.
But I don't see how science could ever distinguish between things that act in every respect like conscious things, when there is no subjective feeling to "be" something, and the existence we all experience. (Well, *I* experience it, you might all be zombies:) )
This seems sort of equivalent to asking why I am "me", and why my subjective experience isn't you, or Napoleon, or some entity on the surface of a neutron star. I can't imagine that science could ever shed light on that, since the laws of physics are the same whether I exist as "me" or if I existed as someone else. Yet there most definitely *is* a difference for me, because I'm not you. Or something like that.
I could postulate a law that says there is subjective experience associated with anything that behaves exactly as if it were conscious. Is this reasonable? Is it a law of physics, or something else?
neurocomp2003 said:...simple experiment can we remove your brain? or at least destroy all the synaptic knobs in your brain. Long thought out thoughts and ideas...lets destroy the concept of papers/ink and fingers.
the_truth said:If god is omnipotent he can choose whether to exist in this universe as a substance or not and what substance he will exist as.
However you cannot prove god's existence so it is best to assume he does not exist. Even if you cannot disprove god's existence as the lack of disproof is worthless if you cannot prove god in the first place.
Canute said:Fascinating how the question about the substance of God turned immediately to a discussion of the substance of consciousness.
If consciousness is non-existent, in a true ontological sense, as has been argued, and if solipsim is unfalsifiable, as it seems to be, then it is logically impossible to know that anything exists, and Descartes' was clearly muddled in thinking that his mystical first-person 'cogito' axiom was trustworthy. In this case the substance of God is not the pressing issue. The substance of matter must be determined first, which will be tricky if in principle we cannot prove that it has any substance.
On the other hand, if consciousness is more fundamental than mind and matter there is at least an in principle possibility that we can know what it is made out of, first-hand at least, and thus an in principle possibility that we can know something about the substance of God, should He/She/It exist, and as long as neither turn out to be immaterial.
But sticking to just the question about God - it seems incoherent to say that God exists within spacetime. In this case if He is made out of substance it is one that is capable of existing outside spacetime. This is some very peculiar substance, since it has no extension in spacetime. From this it seems likely that if there is a God He must be insubstantial or immaterial.
Does this seem reasonable so far?
neurocomp2003 said:Why would you assume me to be religious?
I'm actually atheist,
my question was posed because there are many threads talking about science & religion...
everytime I've asked someone what god(s) is...the simple answer we don't care OR it doesn't really matter...
if people put such faith in god existing...should they not ask that question?
Canute said:Yes, I probably agree with all of that, especially the point about identity, except I'm not sure how you make a distinction between immaterial and insubstantial.
neurocomp2003 said:Royce: "unconscoius brain" is such a awkward word to use does your brain ever stop firing?
Thoughts are just a relay of your brain and your sense.
Do you think a baby will live when their brain is removed?
and every time I've asked someone what god(s) is...the simple answer we don't care OR it doesn't really matter...if people put such faith in god existing...should they not ask that question?
Canute I see what you mean. But I suspect Les would argue that 'essence' said:Okay, I can accept that but how can we know? To answer this threads opening question then, you think God is not made of any material, matter or substance so that we cannot detect him by physical means.
At first glance, I would have to agree with you; however, going a bit deeper, if God exists and he is the creator of the physical universe and he created it out of himself, then everything we see, touch etc is of God. If everything and everyone is made of God then god is everything and everyone and everything and everyone is or is of God. This concurs with our agreement of the universe = reality = God identity. This belief is not rare. Is this what is called pantheism or a form of it? Or am I confusing this with some other term?
Not exactly. I agree with you that God is everything, so to detect the physical is to detect God, or rather an aspect of Him. But also, in this case, then He is me (and you) and I (and you) can in principle detect Him directly. Indeed, we can hardly avoid it.Royce said:Okay, I can accept that but how can we know? To answer this threads opening question then, you think God is not made of any material, matter or substance so that we cannot detect him by physical means.
I think it could be called pantheism, panpsychism, relative phenomenalism, hylozoism and other terms. Each is, or can be, a variation on the universal claim of mystics that "I am God", and that we all are. But, and this is the crucial point, in this latter view God does not really exist. 'Godhead' is a better term. This is where the misunderstandings arise, since we seem to be saddled these days with a naive and over-anthropomorphised notion of God derived from institutional Christianity. Given this notion of God one is forced into the Truth's position, extreme scepticism, since God in this form is clearly an incoherent concept. (To be fair to Christians many of them also argue that this notion of God is incoherent).At first glance, I would have to agree with you; however, going a bit deeper, if God exists and he is the creator of the physical universe and he created it out of himself, then everything we see, touch etc is of God. If everything and everyone is made of God then god is everything and everyone and everything and everyone is or is of God. This concurs with our agreement of the universe = reality = God identity. This belief is not rare. Is this what is called pantheism or a form of it? Or am I confusing this with some other term?
I'm not sure there are any theists here. I'm not anyway.the_truth said:...First off there is nothing to suggest god exists, theists should focus on proving god exists before ponderring the meaning of it all.
Only if one defines God as omnipotent.Second of all if god exists it is omnipotent and can do whatever it wants.
In a way I agree, except that discussion of God cannot reach conclusions. Facts about God, even His existence and/or non-existence, cannot be established by talking about Him. But such discussion still serve a purpose I think, in that they can show some concepts of God to be incoherent, as you've shown.This discussion has no point, it's only purpose is to lead to this conclusion and perhaps to entertain. Or both in my instance.
Canute said:'Godhead' is a better term. This is where the misunderstandings arise, since we seem to be saddled these days with a naive and over-anthropomorphised notion of God derived from institutional Christianity.
Royce said:There is a Zen story that I came across long ago that pointed out that if everything is sacred, then nothing is sacred. I believe this and in light of our conclusion that everything, the universe, is the Godhead, I have come to the place where God is a natural God and not the "Great Outsider." The term "supernatural" is in itself a contradiction. Few, however, agree with or understand this position.
GaryCGibson said:The substance of my opinion was deleted, evidently because it was of an actual philosophical character instead of neo-fascist physics-only pseudo- philosophy...see my webpage at www.lulu.com/garycgibson if your interested in the uncensored version (the only one remaining. I'm sure this will be censored too however. It's really unfortunate that the censoring goons on this webpage make posting so tedious. Initially I intended to write just one brief paragraph to get a couple of opinions, yet the twin towers of censoring terror make this little defense requisite.