• Have you permeated my point about the lack of a loophole? I'll try to put it in different words, just to be sure: You know how atoms work right? And how they form molecules. And they do so according to physical + chemical laws. And together they form our bodies, according to the plan in the DNA, still all adhering to those physical laws. And then there is the brain, which has yet higher functions than the body, which can compute input from the senses, and generates various kinds of outputs.


  • Now consciousness is a mystery ofc. And I agree with you, that it is a kind of "supernatural, godly" thing, and by agree I mean, I do believe this too. And this believe stands in contrast with a purely materialistic worldview. Because in a world made out of matter only, consciousness must be a function of the brain. And since the brain adheres fully to the physical laws, it is somewhat mechanic, fully deterministic.


  • Well almost, since there are random quantum effects, that are certainly at work in the brain. But that's chance changing the path of how things run in the brain and not freedom.

    So, if the world was purely materialistic then we would be fully deterministic machines, influenced by chance. Consciousness would be nothing other than a function of the underlying system. I mean yes, the whole would be more than it's parts. But it would not transcend the framework, it would not introduce actual free choice.

    I don't believe the world is purely materialistic. I believe it might not at all be materialistic...


  • But this vision you've got of the world as good-and-evil choices fighting tooth-and-nail for dominance, and the spiritual world of God as a hard-to-perceive implicate order -- I admit that would be my solution of choice, too. I like the way you're not afraid to go bleak:

    @pe7erpark3r said in My new world view:

    But the mind is not the entity that makes the free choices. The place of the choices is not a thinking, logical entity. The place of the choices is the soul... something the mind can never understand, nor has to understand.

    I like the way you're willing to describe our minds as places inherently lost, unsure and morally claustrophobic ...and also envision a positive outcome via God. That would be cool. But I need persuading.

    Well it somehow seems like a biographically influenced worldview. I was agnostic before I became christian again. And I've realized quite some time ago, that a purely materialistic world must indeed a very bleak world.


  • I wonder how one would be able to persuade someone as deep a thinker as you. And someone, who thinks in so amazingly different frames than me. Help me a bit here... What could persuade you? Would it make you curious to see actual predictions come true in the real world? Would you need a mystical experience? Do you need a saint to act out what christ teaches? What's the thing, that could change your view on this?


  • Sorry for splitting my reply in so many short replies, there is some technical glitch in tws that didn't let me post the thing as a hole. All my previous posts were in reply to @Indrid-Cold


  • @pe7erpark3r Thanx for your epic, multi-part reply. I'm not panicky exactly about the UK economy, because I'm using the logic that - since we're all off work at the same time - everything will resume as b4 once the vaccine has been developed. Also, I think I've got these plusses on my side - I'm the fourth longest serving member of my company (out of 40) and I have a lot of knowledge in my head, and it'd be crazy to get rid of me.

    "Deep thinker"? Not me. I really have to concentrate or I'll just start panting like a dog and staring at the sun. But vizaviz your idea of the brain and consciousness being limited to materialistic terms -- I base a lot of my thinking on this subject on the writings of Bernardo Kastrup, who's cross-referenced and collated a lot of research into the way unconnected quantum effects might be able to influence brain axons.

    So that's one reason I found it fascinating that you attributed quantum effects in the brain as simple chance -- on one hand, that's a really cool way of looking at it, since all too often a lot of people use quantum theory to justify anything and everything in the macrocosmic world, and that's not the way it works.

    If you look into the phenomenon of remote viewing, there's some very convincing statistics. I, for one, can envision in my mind the way a hightened collective unconscious might collapse quantum fields (either in this world, or somewhere else) into human-orientated stuff. But even if you do dismiss consciousness as limited to the materialistic world, just the idea -- I think -- is the best chance of civilisation has of progressing. Imagine if we ran our politics along the lines of a meditative, ultra-intimate 'second mind' monitoring the day-to-actions of our lives proper? I don't get why God wouldn't want to take advantage of that idea. I mean, I can understand the gnostic idea of a deliberately flawed mortal world as well as anyone, but, but, but there's still got to be a visible way through.

    I fully acknowledge it could be my sloppy understanding of Jesus' message, or his general vibe.

    But yeah. Take care fella.


  • @Indrid-Cold said in My new world view:

    I don't get why God wouldn't want to take advantage of that idea. I mean, I can understand the gnostic idea of a deliberately flawed mortal world as well as anyone, but, but, but there's still got to be a visible way through.

    I fully acknowledge it could be my sloppy understanding of Jesus' message, or his general vibe.

    But yeah. Take care fella.

    I'd really love to get an answer to this question:

    I wonder how one would be able to persuade someone as deep a thinker as you. And someone, who thinks in so amazingly different frames than me. Help me a bit here... What could persuade you? Would it make you curious to see actual predictions come true in the real world? Would you need a mystical experience? Do you need a saint to act out what christ teaches? What's the thing, that could change your view on this?

    Or did you answer it by saying you'd need a better understanding of Christ's message?

    I'll have to read your post again though, I think I'll think more about it tomorrow :yum:


  • @pe7erpark3r Behold my huge cut-and-pasted multi-section reply:

    I think the thing about Christianity, to me, is that it plays out on either a massive scale, or an incredibly small scale, but nothing in between. Our human conceptions are either flawed because they're part of some eternity of greater meanings, or flawed just because our lives are short even from our own point of view, with limited philosophical or scientific input. It doesn't feel that way to me, though. We deserve a more clearly defined game plan. So I'm not so much interested in a mystical experience like you suggest, just a very, very subtle sign that we're on the right track.


  • @pe7erpark3r There's a bit in the film Red Planet, when Terrance Stamp says to one of the other astronauts of Mars, "What do you expect to happen? Lift up a rock and see written, 'Made by God'?" I think later on, by himself, Val Kilmer does actually pick up a random rock and have a look.

    There comes a point when we're all on some suicide mission to Planet Mars, and we'll never see Earth again.


  • @pe7erpark3r Specific to Christianity, I think my biggest misgiving can be summed up in the parable of the Prodigal Son. The younger son gets his inheritance early and spaffs it away on hedonism. The older son has to continue toiling the fields. Now, I get the overall message. Forgive the younger son for being a d1ck and forgive the older son for his bitterness because they both get swallowed up in the greater meaning of God.

    But at the same time ...it seems like very, very basic common sense to treat people's human sensibilities with respect. Imagine if the older son represented, say, the entirety of the working class of England (what's left of it). Imagine them flinging their hands in the air and saying, "Right, Dad, you're getting no more work from us".

    Society would collapse in a malaise of hedonism and conceit (and if we carry on at this rate, it will really happen)

    I mean, under those circumstances, Christianity would still be an incredibly important thing, perhaps still the most important thing in the world, but at the same time, I personally have got nothing to relate to. Which is not a criticism of Chritianity at all, it's just my personal thinking.