Calling God “conscious” needs qualifiers, for we don’t believe God “thinks” or feels passible emotions, as there can be no discursive or ratiocinate processes in the Godhead. The analogy to intelligence is on the basis that when we know things, in addition to all the other processes, the object known has a virtual existence in our mind. So in God, all things he does and can cause exist virtually all at once in and as his essence.But even you believe that consciousness doesn’t need a cause, willed or otherwise. You believe that God, a conscious being, didn’t need a cause. So why shouldn’t I assume that the same premise applies to my consciousness? It doesn’t need a cause.
And it is de facto impossible to pull you out if yourself to see if there is an external world. Everything for you is filtered through your perception. So you admit no possibility for it to be demonstrated otherwise.But now you’re making assumptions not based upon the evidence. All that I can know for certain, is that I exist, and that I perceive other things to exist as well. But I have no evidence by which to conclude that they actually do exist beyond my perception of them
Still, just because something can be proposed without a possible, strict counter demonstration does not mean we need give it serious consideration. The notion that you are a disembodied consciousness dreaming of things you’ve never encountered anywhere, that you’ve never encountered anything anywhere, as opposed to you being a sensing and knowing being in a natural world who knows of things because you have interacted with then is just too overwrought to be considered a justifiable belief in any sense.
Thank you Wesrock. You and I have had enough such discussions that I appreciate the difference, and while this would make for an interesting discussion JimR-OCDS is probably right, to pursue it any further would derail the thread. As you may or may not recall, I believe that three things can be known to exist, consciousness, context, and cause. So even I believe that consciousness needs a cause. I’m just not sure whether any one of those three can be said to have willed the other two into existence, because it implies that one of them preexisted the other two. I’m more inclined to believe that the three constitute one indivisible whole.Calling God “conscious” needs qualifiers, for we don’t believe God “thinks” or feels passible emotions, as there can be no discursive or ratiocinate processes in the Godhead.
True, but I will listen to reason, and you’re one of the few here on CAF who’s reasoning I’ve come to appreciate. Even if I don’t always agree with it.And it is de facto impossible to pull you out if yourself to see if there is an external world. Everything for you is filtered through your perception. So you admit no possibility for it to be demonstrated otherwise.
But aren’t you in essence doing the same? Trying to explain what you are and where you came from?Still, just because something can be proposed without a possible, strict counter demonstration does not mean we need give it serious consideration. The notion that you are a disembodied consciousness dreaming of things you’ve never encountered anywhere, that you’ve never encountered anything anywhere, as opposed to you being a sensing and knowing being in a natural world who knows of things because you have interacted with then is just too overwrought to be considered a justifiable belief in any sense.