God is Energy

Response to theprodigy2186's atheist challenge.

Check them out: http://www.youtube.com/user/theprodigy2186

If you are simply substituting the word 'God' for 'energy' that's fine although not very useful. However, on what basis do you say that all of the matter and energy that makes up the universe is a conscious being? Is this consciousness analogous to human consciousness and if so how? If not, then what is the use of the God hypothesis?

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[riversonthemoon]

Don't you just hate it when the substitute ontologies?

You said you heard some arguments for matter other than brains having consciousness. Is that a reference to Hameroff and Penrose? As I understand it they have arguments for biological tissues having consciousness, but I haven't heard anyone claim that a rock or such things have consciousness. Can you drop a few names? I'll do the research. Cheers.

[miksedene]

It's not an argument that objects have consciousness as we recognise it, simply an argument that if you take a certain definition of consciousness you are forced to say that everything is conscious. I can't give you the names as I didn't study it in depth. The view is called 'panpsychism' and it appears as a response to functionalist theories of mind and matter.

[riversonthemoon]

Thanks. I just did a little bit of reading on it. I think I remember John Searle mention it in a lecture once. I believe he used the word 'absurd'.

It doesn't seem to be testable, or even (as I understand it) to solve anything. We are still left with the hard problem. How does somehow-slightly-conscious matter come together to be the subjective experience of a human? We may as well stick with emergentism and try to solve that.

[miksedene]

Firstly, it's a philosophical criticism of a certain type of materialism, so it is by nature untestable. Secondly, although I don't know what you read I don't have too much of a problem with it as all the view states is that if you take a functionalist approach (which I am tempted to do) you end up having to apply the word 'conscious' to all objects. This isn't a problem in itself as it doesn't imply that everything is sentient as we know it, it simply devalues the concept of consciousness.

[riversonthemoon]

"it simply devalues the concept of consciousness"

Certainly does. To the point of meaninglessness. If a proton is 'conscious', then it must be some epiphenomena that has no discernible effect on its behaviour. Occam's razor neatly slices it off.

I had just read the wiki article on it, but later I checked out the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on panpsychism. It seems William James made the same criticism I did. He called it the 'combination problem'. Check it out. :)

[miksedene]

I might just do that. To be honest, I have no problem with consciousness being meaningless but as you say, the point is that it's not a useful concept in this view. That's why I asked the question, I'm wondering if theprodigy2168 is approaching it from some alternate route.

[seriouslycurious1]

@FallofDarkness55 or say

[seriouslycurious1]

@FallofDarkness55 and i dont appreciate you telling me what to think, buddy, that's the end of our conversation

[seriouslycurious1]

@FallofDarkness55 dont have time, got a message several years ago things are gonna be okay, go figure

[FallofDarkness55]

@seriouslycurious1 lmfao. do your research on string theory first before commenting again. you sound ignorant.

[FallofDarkness55]

@seriouslycurious1 i'm a supporter of string theory. this is the theory of everything and it ties general relativity with quantum mechanics. also there's interesting outcomes of this theory. it also suggests that there are more dimensions to reality than meet the eye... 7 extra dimensions. god can dwell in one of these dimensions and god rides on light like you said. the particle for light is the photon caused by the propagation of electromagnetic waves through a medium such as space.

[seriouslycurious1]

@seriouslycurious1 and keep doing the next right thing

[seriouslycurious1]

@seriouslycurious1 also, time wraps, so the various manifestations that have appeared throughout known time, major prophets, the lineage, etc, could very well be, so try to live love be, ok?

[seriouslycurious1]

@FallofDarkness55 but you better listen to your conscience, because it's definately an inside job

[seriouslycurious1]

@FallofDarkness55 no it's more than that, god rides on light or something, i dunno, i'm not a fucking particle physicist, rrgg