Are Gods physical?

[ytrewq]

In a previous thread I was astounded to hear the claim that Gods are not physical, presumably meaning they do not consist of physical matter. How any theist could actually claim to know that is a mystery, but never mind. The question being asked here is :-

Are Gods made from physical matter, and if they are not, then what are they made from.

If they are able to think and do stuff, then presumably they must be made of something.

By physical matter, I mean the physical stuff within our Universe from which everything else is made from, which includes atoms, sub-atomic particles, and to be fair I suppose we must include dark matter as well.

But there are other classes of things that undeniably exist, that are not physical matter as such, that perhaps Gods could be made of. Here is a list of stuff that definitely exists, and thus Gods might potentially be made of :-

(a) Physical matter, including atoms, sub-atomic particles, and dark matter

(b) Electromagnetic radiation and other forms of radiation, energy and fields. For example, light and radio waves.

(c) Human (or animal) feelings, emotions, thoughts, love, hate jealousy, intelligence, stupidity, truth, dishonesty, spirituality and so on. All of these can be said to exist, but not in a physical form.

(d) Similar to (c), morals, legal or scientific laws, stories, information, principles, and so on. As with (c), all of these can be said to exist, but not in a physical form, although the media that encodes them may be physical, such as a book or CD.

OK. So what are Gods made from? Certainly not anything in the (c) or (d) category, which do not physically exist in their own right and are not capable of performing physical feats on their own. That is, it makes no sense to say that a God (or anything else) is made from love, or justice or logic or spirituality. These are attributes of something that physically exists.

I have heard it said that Gods are not physical, but spiritual. Spiritual is an adjective, an attribute of something that exists, so it makes no sense to say that a God is made of spirituality, any more than saying it is made of love. So sure, Gods probably are very spiritual things, but that says nothing of what they are made from, which is the topic of this thread.

So what is left? Within the realms of human knowledge, and Im not interested in just making stuff up, then I must conclude that Gods (if they exist) are made of the same stuff that everything else in the Universe is made of, being categories (a) and (b).

Anyone agree or disagree with the above?

[Swami]

Rather, I suggested three broad plausible frameworks for consciousness which I'm aware of, yours and two others: "...there's currently no scientific way to distinguish between [1] the brain's activity being identical with consciousness, [2] the brain merely serving as a conduit or host for consciousness, and [3] the brain providing a formative stage or gestational period for human consciousness." None of those imply that human consciousness normally exists exterior to the brain, and all three are consistent with the "overwhelming, verifiable evidence" you presented in post #188. However a key difference is that the first is not compatible with (for example)

Option 1 is ytrewq's view. I fail to see where that option was proven. Whereas my view is #2 and it is consistent with all of the correlations that ytrewq's brought up. I don't see why #2 is hard to accept even if consciousness was physical since we have software and memory that can be transferred to different hardware.

[ytrewq]

Rather, I suggested three broad plausible frameworks for consciousness which I'm aware of, yours and two others: "...there's currently no scientific way to distinguish between [1] the brain's activity being identical with consciousness, [2] the brain merely serving as a conduit or host for consciousness, and [3] the brain providing a formative stage or gestational period for human consciousness." None of those imply that human consciousness normally exists exterior to the brain, and all three are consistent with the "overwhelming, verifiable evidence" you presented in post #188. However a key difference is that the first is not compatible with (for example)

Option 1 is ytrewq's view. I fail to see where that option was proven. Whereas my view is #2 and it is consistent with all of the correlations that ytrewq's brought up. I don't see why #2 is hard to accept even if consciousness was physical since we have software and memory that can be transferred to different hardware.

But wait a minute. Mithrae, like me, states that :-

"None of those options imply that human consciousness normally exists exterior to the brain, ..."

I thought you claimed that consciousness does exist outside of our brain - have you changed your mind?

[ytrewq]

[Replying to post 220 by Razorsedge]

Exactly which part of consciousness, for which robust evidence is available, does not fit within my "conventional" model? I should be interested to know.

- Your evidence does not cover the pure awareness state, the state that shows consciousness existing without mind and body.

And nor should it or does it need to, because there is no evidence that such a "pure awareness state existing without mind or body" exists. Your "perceptions" are not evidence. You are doing things backwards. First you find evidence that something exists, then (and only then) do you accommodate it in your model. No one as yet has provided any evidence for consciousness existing without brain or body. But should they do so, in a verifiable way, then there is a million dollars waiting for them. You would like a million dollars, wouldn't you? Last I heard Randi was still offering it, but there are plenty of skeptic organizations offering still substantial sums of money. It's very unusual for people not to take up offers for large sums of money that according to you, could be collected so easily? But wait a minute, you have no evidence, only perceptions .... sorry, they won't pay out on that. Now to be fair, you were honest and admitted to having only "perceptions", so in that case I'm puzzled as to why you continue to make claims that you know to be worthless in a debate environment. Please read the Forum rules and hints for debate.

- Your evidence doesn't even address the hard problem of consciousness. You just cited a bunch of correlations, at best.

I don't know of any "hard problems" with consciousness, any more than I know of any "hard problems" for our emotions, so no problem there, either.

[Swami]

Rather, I suggested three broad plausible frameworks for consciousness which I'm aware of, yours and two others: "...there's currently no scientific way to distinguish between [1] the brain's activity being identical with consciousness, [2] the brain merely serving as a conduit or host for consciousness, and [3] the brain providing a formative stage or gestational period for human consciousness." None of those imply that human consciousness normally exists exterior to the brain, and all three are consistent with the "overwhelming, verifiable evidence" you presented in post #188. However a key difference is that the first is not compatible with (for example)

Option 1 is ytrewq's view. I fail to see where that option was proven. Whereas my view is #2 and it is consistent with all of the correlations that ytrewq's brought up. I don't see why #2 is hard to accept even if consciousness was physical since we have software and memory that can be transferred to different hardware.

But wait a minute. Mithrae, like me, states that :-

"None of those options imply that human consciousness normally exists exterior to the brain, ..."

I thought you claimed that consciousness does exist outside of our brain - have you changed your mind?

No, you are probably forgetting some details of my view. I've brought up individuate consciousness which I defined as follows in post 181:

The individual consciousness that you associate with a brain is simply a limited expression of God - it is how consciousness is expressed in the system of the brain.

The consciousness that exists outside or without our brain/body is what I call God.

The two are simply degrees or levels of awareness, with the difference being God level is the highest and individuate consciousness is lower. This is why I'm not so fond of the term "supernatural" because my view simply involves levels of consciousness.

You see scientists already accept that there are different levels or degrees of consciousness. The Western scientist simply assumes that human consciousness is the highest expression of consciousness, and I'm sure they used to think that humans were the only ones with consciousness. Eastern thinkers have discovered a higher levels of consciousness.


In another post, you also said that you don't see any hard problem of consciousness. That's not a good thing to say considering that neuroscientists and philosophers acknowledge that there's a hard problem. The 'hard problem' is not simply a matter of not knowing what or how consciousness is caused , but it's also about consciousness being different than anything else observed in the Universe. There are also related problems like not knowing the form or function of consciousness, esp. when you consider that all human behavior could be carried out without 'subjective' experience. This is shown in concepts like the 'philosophical zombie' and all of the cognitive-like tasks that computers can do without subjective experience.

[ytrewq]

[Replying to post 234 by Razorsedge]

The consciousness that exists outside or without our brain/body is what I call God.

One half of me apologises for reprimanding you for constantly posting claims for which you give no evidence of a standard above your perceptions. So I'll do the right thing and say "Sorry about that".

And then I'll go away a tear my hair out, when, like water off a duck's back, you immediately do the same thing again!

In a debate environment, your statement above is instantly discarded as having no value, because you provide no evidence that consciousness exists outside of our brain/body.

I really don't know what to say. Perhaps I should just loosen up and smile.

You see scientists already accept that there are different levels or degrees of consciousness. The Western scientist simply assumes that human consciousness is the highest expression of consciousness, and I'm sure they used to think that humans were the only ones with consciousness. Eastern thinkers have discovered a higher levels of consciousness.

I very much doubt that it was the scientists that used to think that humans were the only ones with consciousness. Throughout history, and remaining to this day it is the religious believers that have (and often still do) think that humans are somehow fundamentally different and superior to "dumb" animals that exist only for our benefit. It is very much a religious belief that we perfect humans have sentience and consciousness in a way that animals don't. You got that one wrong.

I would personally call your "higher" level of consciousness reached in meditation a "lower" level than in normal experience, because as a matter of fact, we are more accurately and fully aware of our surroundings when not in a distorted meditative state. In our normal state, we can accurately report on everything that our eyes and ears and other receptors are telling us - that is reality. When in a meditative state, we have the perception of great depth and knowledge but not the demonstrated reality of it. No one has ever received knowledge in a meditative state that they did not our could not have already known. Forgive me for saying so, but it's pretty obvious that you can't learn anything accurate about your surroundings when you are not fully awake and alert and receiving all the data from your receptors. So without a doubt, the meditative state should be called the "lower" state of consciousness. This is why people meditating often give what are in fact untrue accounts of reality, such as all or part of their body floating around the room, or seeing to infinity, or whatever. We know this is an untrue account, because the information that we would expect to accompany such imagined actions, that could not be know in any other way, is never available. It's that pesky evidence thing again. Feelings and perceptions count for nothing. Evidence does. It's a concept you really need to come to grips with.

[Swami]

[Replying to post 234 by Razorsedge]

The consciousness that exists outside or without our brain/body is what I call God.

One half of me apologises for reprimanding you for constantly posting claims for which you give no evidence of a standard above your perceptions. So I'll do the right thing and say "Sorry about that".

Accepted.

And then I'll go away a tear my hair out, when, like water off a duck's back, you immediately do the same thing again!

In a debate environment, your statement above is instantly discarded as having no value, because you provide no evidence that consciousness exists outside of our brain/body.

The only reason I brought it up in my last post is because in post 232 you said that I claimed that consciousness only exists outside the brain. I kindly pointed out from previous posts where I claimed consciousness can exists in the body AND outside of it.

We've already been through the evidence concern and you and I simply have a fundamental difference there. It is worth nothing that Western science can't even tell you how or why consciousness is caused in the brain let alone outside of it.

[Replying to post 234 by Razorsedge]

You see scientists already accept that there are different levels or degrees of consciousness. The Western scientist simply assumes that human consciousness is the highest expression of consciousness, and I'm sure they used to think that humans were the only ones with consciousness. Eastern thinkers have discovered a higher levels of consciousness.

I very much doubt that it was the scientists that used to think that humans were the only ones with consciousness. Throughout history, and remaining to this day it is the religious believers that have (and often still do) think that humans are somehow fundamentally different and superior to "dumb" animals that exist only for our benefit. It is very much a religious belief that we perfect humans have sentience and consciousness in a way that animals don't. You got that one wrong.

Do research on 'animal consciousness' and there you'll find that I'm correct. The issue of non-humans having consciousness was a common concern when it came to ethical issues surrounding animal slaughter. Here's one excerpt:

Bernard Rollin of Colorado State University, the principal author of two U.S. federal laws regulating pain relief for animals, writes that researchers remained unsure into the 1980s as to whether animals experience pain, and veterinarians trained in the U.S. before 1989 were simply taught to ignore animal pain.[29] In his interactions with scientists and other veterinarians, Rollin was regularly asked to prove animals are conscious and provide scientifically acceptable grounds for claiming they feel pain.

It wasn't until 2012 that there was some formal statement from a group of neuroscientists declaring that non-human animals can also possess consciousness.
You can read all of this information and the excerpt on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_co ... sciousness

I would personally call your "higher" level of consciousness reached in meditation a "lower" level than in normal experience, because as a matter of fact, we are more accurately and fully aware of our surroundings when not in a distorted meditative state. In our normal state, we can accurately report on everything that our eyes and ears and other receptors are telling us - that is reality.

Again, another fundamental difference between our views. This all depends on how you define reality and consciousness.


I think we can both agree that certain forms of meditation enable us to better perceive or be more aware of our mental activity (thoughts, feelings) and that's because you take an observer role rather than just going through with them.

I'm glad you used the words "more accurately" as opposed to claiming that the senses gives us an accurate picture of reality. Had you said that I would've presented you with Western thinkers from Immanuel Kant to neuroscientists who say otherwise.





When in a meditative state, we have the perception of great depth and knowledge but not the demonstrated reality of it.





No one has ever received knowledge in a meditative state that they did not our could not have already known. Forgive me for saying so, but it's pretty obvious that you can't learn anything accurate about your surroundings when you are not fully awake and alert and receiving all the data from your receptors. So without a doubt, the meditative state should be called the "lower" state of consciousness. This is why people meditating often give what are in fact untrue accounts of reality, such as all or part of their body floating around the room, or seeing to infinity, or whatever. We know this is an untrue account, because the information that we would expect to accompany such imagined actions, that could not be know in any other way, is never available. It's that pesky evidence thing again. Feelings and perceptions count for nothing. Evidence does. It's a concept you really need to come to grips with.[/quote]

[William]

[Replying to post 235 by ytrewq]

In our normal state, we can accurately report on everything that our eyes and ears and other receptors are telling us - that is reality.

Feelings and perceptions count for nothing.

What can be found here?

Once upon a time the popular atheist argument was that our experience of BEING was simply an illusion that the brain creates.

Now we have the above contradictory statements to further befuddle the unwary among us.

[Swami]

[Replying to post 234 by Razorsedge]

The consciousness that exists outside or without our brain/body is what I call God.

One half of me apologises for reprimanding you for constantly posting claims for which you give no evidence of a standard above your perceptions. So I'll do the right thing and say "Sorry about that".

Accepted.

And then I'll go away a tear my hair out, when, like water off a duck's back, you immediately do the same thing again!

In a debate environment, your statement above is instantly discarded as having no value, because you provide no evidence that consciousness exists outside of our brain/body.

The only reason I brought it up in my last post is because in post 232 you said that I claimed that consciousness only exists outside the brain. I kindly pointed out from previous posts where I claimed consciousness can exists in the body AND outside of it.

[Replying to post 234 by Razorsedge]

You see scientists already accept that there are different levels or degrees of consciousness. The Western scientist simply assumes that human consciousness is the highest expression of consciousness, and I'm sure they used to think that humans were the only ones with consciousness. Eastern thinkers have discovered a higher levels of consciousness.

I very much doubt that it was the scientists that used to think that humans were the only ones with consciousness. Throughout history, and remaining to this day it is the religious believers that have (and often still do) think that humans are somehow fundamentally different and superior to "dumb" animals that exist only for our benefit. It is very much a religious belief that we perfect humans have sentience and consciousness in a way that animals don't. You got that one wrong.

Do research on 'animal consciousness' and there you'll find that I'm correct. The issue of non-human animals having consciousness was a common concern when it came to ethical issues surrounding animal slaughter. Here's one excerpt:

Bernard Rollin of Colorado State University, the principal author of two U.S. federal laws regulating pain relief for animals, writes that researchers remained unsure into the 1980s as to whether animals experience pain, and veterinarians trained in the U.S. before 1989 were simply taught to ignore animal pain.[29] In his interactions with scientists and other veterinarians, Rollin was regularly asked to prove animals are conscious and provide scientifically acceptable grounds for claiming they feel pain.

It wasn't until 2012 that there was some formal statement from a group of neuroscientists declaring that non-human animals can also possess consciousness.
You can read all of this information and the excerpt on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_co ... sciousness

I would personally call your "higher" level of consciousness reached in meditation a "lower" level than in normal experience, because as a matter of fact, we are more accurately and fully aware of our surroundings when not in a distorted meditative state. In our normal state, we can accurately report on everything that our eyes and ears and other receptors are telling us - that is reality.

By "higher" consciousness, I was referring to consciousness in its purest form. It was meant to draw a distinction between consciousness thats limited to the body vs. consciousness thats not limited to the body.

You bring up perception of the outside or material world as being what distinguishes greater or lesser consciousness, and I agree with that to a point. But keep in mind that meditation is not aimed at perception of the material world (or only that) since it leads to perception of other levels of existence up to the nature of reality. I find that level of knowledge or awareness as being more important to reality than any other because understanding your nature and that of the Universe shapes everything else. So you win with science if the goal is to perceive or observe material world, but you fall short of Eastern science when it comes to the bigger picture of reality overall.

No one has ever received knowledge in a meditative state that they did not our could not have already known.

This is a claim from your own limited or non-experience of meditation. Ive chosen to share the more important details from what Ive learned but people find out about mundane ordinary things, like what their relative is cooking while in an OBE state, etc.

This is why people meditating often give what are in fact untrue accounts of reality, such as all or part of their body floating around the room, or seeing to infinity, or whatever. We know this is an untrue account, because the information that we would expect to accompany such imagined actions, that could not be know in any other way, is never available. It's that pesky evidence thing again.

Im sure there are false claims but then there are true claims like mine. This is why I go on a case-by-case basis rather than making blanket statements.

Feelings and perceptions count for nothing. Evidence does. It's a concept you really need to come to grips with.

I would hope that perceptions count for something since we perceive things through our senses. I assume you're okay with that at least. I think it's only reasonable for you to experience all of the varieties of perception, feelings and/or sensations of the pure conscious state before you draw any conclusions on it. I only say this because materialists who have experienced tend to shift from being hardline materialists to reasonable open-minded ones. Ever hear of Dr. Eben Alexander?!

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 237 by Razorsedge]

This is a claim from your own limited or non-experience of meditation. Ive chosen to share the more important details from what Ive learned but people find out about mundane ordinary things, like what their relative is cooking while in an OBE state, etc.

I'd like to have a discussion purely on that. Do you want to do that here, or do you want me to start a new thread? I'm leaning toward the latter, just so you can continue your discussion with ytrewq with no interruptions from myself.

[Mithrae]

The claim that Pam provides evidence for awareness without a brain is thus completely discredited as far as I am concerned. On any logical, unbiased analysis, the obvious conclusion is that she had the common experience of "anesthesia awareness". Time to move on.

Ah, right... but the thing is that just a few posts ago you seemed equally certain that something which seems quite literally physically impossible - that without a supply of oxygen and glucose and hence no metabolism her brains cells were nevertheless actively producing vivid conscious experience - was the "obvious" explanation. Now (by your own account) you came up with another ad hoc explanation before having done any further research, and suddenly this is the "obvious" conclusion instead! It seems overwhelmingly evident from this that your intuitions to what is or is not obvious are driven by something other than sound logic and evidence.

This new suddenly "obvious" scenario does at least have the virtue of being physically possible, I'll give you that. That's why in all my previous posts I noted the distinction between the out-of-body aspect of Pam's report, and the alleged timing of some of the experience occurring during no brain activity. It's important to remember that there is absolutely zero evidence against Pam's account of the timing of her experiences, only unsubstantiated speculation. Anyone who claims that this unsubstantiated speculation is a certain or obvious truth is simply demonstrating their prior commitments against what this evidence suggests. Nevertheless, it is a real possibility that she perceived the timing incorrectly, so I personally take that speculation quite seriously.

Similarly, there is a slim chance that the rare phenomenon of anaesthesia awareness was in play and that she correctly guessed the nature of the surgical tools without consciously considering or previously seeing them and that the moulded speakers in her ears emitting frequent loud clicks to check her brain's responses did not prevent her hearing the staff's conversation. None of those is particularly probable alone, let alone all together, but they are possible. Of course out-of-body experiences are pretty rare/improbable too. So since it's a somewhat arbitrary guess anyway I would suppose something along the lines of a 1/3 probability of the anaesthesia awareness explanation being correct, 1/3 probability that she had a genuine OBE under anaesthesia (of which many other reports exist), and 1/3 probability that in addition to a genuine OBE Pam also perceived the timing correctly and had conscious experience without brain activity (which is what makes this a particularly rare and interesting case).

By contrast, your presuppositions are apparently compelling you to perceive any alternative - no matter how unevidenced, ad hoc or even physically impossible - as "obviously" true simply because you refuse to accept any real possibility that those presuppositions are incorrect.


#####

[Replying to post 225 by Mithrae]

I'll wait for you to catch up on the last third of post #212 (or better yet, the still-notorious post #36 linked therein) before replying further.

OK, so I did refer back to your post #36, where you seemed largely to be offering help to William with his particular views, rather than presenting your own views. I suggest that our present discussions should be about your personal views, not your interpretation and defense of some one else's views.

To be honest, I found your #36 to be very vague and "fluffy", plus you touched on many different things.

Is there a single, well defined question or claim from #36 that we can discuss? Then if we resolve that, we can move onto the next claim or question.

But please, no meaningless statements like "God is consciousness", where after pages of discussion I am still none the wiser as to what the statement means.

Well I must say, after the past dozen or so pages of discussion I really wasn't expecting a whole lot, but still something better than this.

But never mind, no matter Your posts on the Pam Reynolds case have been real gems, and I feel they pretty conclusively demonstrate that even if you did understand perspectives other than your own you most likely would never acknowledge any legitimacy to them regardless of the logical soundness, parsimony and compelling (albeit inconclusive) observational evidence supporting them.