STEM, STEMG, Other

[Leela]

we don’t believe in STEMG, we believe that G-d is outside of the observable universe the same way a potter is outside a vase he makes.

This is what I mean by STEMG. It sounds like you are talking about a God separate from nature or deism.

we dont’ view G-d as an aspect of the universe rather we view the universe as an aspect of Him.

This sounds more like what you may mean to say and may be described as panentheism? Everything exists within God? Is panentheism the Catholic conception of God?

… free will is a consequence of a G-d, with no G-d you simply have mathematical determinism.

the universe becomes a giant game of 8-ball, played with almost uncountable numbers of particles, with only one shot made at the beginning.

but since each particle has a definite mathematical relationship with every other particle, with enough computational power and a complete knowledge of the beginning state one may predict with complete accuracy the end state and any point in between.

therefore if the universe is whole and complete, with no exterior forces there is no such thing as free will.

nothing could be any different than it is. and it was all predictable from the starting state of the system.

only with G-d can we have free will. without Him we are a set system with no real choices available to us.

The above is exactly what I mean by STEMG. This is not a negation of STEM but rather “STEM plus God” or STEMG.

Can you explain how ading God to STEM results in free will? In your view, though God is free aren’t we still stuck with the determinism of STEM?

Best,
Leela

 

[davidv]

This is what I mean by STEMG. It sounds like you are talking about a God separate from nature or deism.

I believe what you are describing is the “god of the gaps”. Catholics do not believe this is God.

This sounds more like what you may mean to say and may be described as panentheism? Everything exists within God? Is panentheism the Catholic conception of God?

The universe as being an expression of God is not the same as being a part of God (Panentheism). This is not the Catholic view. Why do you think it is?

The above is exactly what I mean by STEMG. This is not a negation of STEM but rather “STEM plus God” or STEMG.

You apprehension Catholic theology is deficient if you believe this to be the Catholic view. Equating what warpspeedpetey stated to be equivalent to the “god of the gaps” is incorrect.

Can you explain how ading God to STEM results in free will?
Best,
Leela

No I cannot explain it because adding God to STEM is not the reality.

In your view, though God is free aren’t we still stuck with the determinism of STEM?

No. STEM is only a part of reality. As a human being I am created in the image of God. Two of the aspects of that “image” are intellect and will.

 

[Leela]

one either believes in the supernatural, or one doesn’t believe in the supernatural

in the same manner one cannot be a little bit pregnant, you are or you are not

I don’t believe in the supernatural partly because I’m not even sure what it could mean for something to be unnatural whether super- or sub-natural, so I guess I’m not a little bit pregnant?

Maybe you are a little bit pregnant if you believe in one God but not others or fairies but not leprachauns? I don’t think we have such on either/or as you seem to think here.

the universe is either completely material, or is is not completely material

There is a third possibility which is that this is simply a “wrong question” that needs to be unasked. I think that matter runs into trouble when we try to define what it is, so “material” may be useless as a metaphysical concept.

basic logic would seem to indicate that the positions you are claiming are mutually exclusive.

how do you explain this contradiction?

Multiple truths can coexist. Polar and rectangular coordinates are both correct without contradiction.

My claim was that two different metaphysical positions could cash out to the same thing. one example is people’s view on free will. I can’t see how fatalism and free will result in any different behavior. How does one behave as though she doesn’t have a choice?

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

what ‘things’ are there , existent, that don’t obey known physical laws, or theories?

i don’t know of anything that exists in the observable universe, that is not material.

You continue to provide the best example of the STEMG hat I’m talking about.

Thoughts and values are not material, yet certainly exist.

the fact that G-d exists is the instrument by which free will is possible. it is the escape from mathematical determinism so to speak please refer to post # 5

If you believe in the mathematical determinism of STEM, adding a G does nothing to get you out of it that I can see. God may be free, but if we are stuck in STEM then we are not.

we as Catholics believe that ‘free will’ is an aspect of our creation in the manner that a toy robot may be built as remote control or programmed to react to its environment.

how do you support the apparent presumption that a G-d capable of Creating a universe, would not be capable of creating the mechanisms for free will?

A “mechanism” seems to me to be the opposite of free will–like using a formula to generate random numbers (which is actually how those tables are usually made). Do you think this “mechanism” is material?

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

I believe what you are describing is the “god of the gaps”. Catholics do not believe this is God.

The universe as being an expression of God is not the same as being a part of God (Panentheism). This is not the Catholic view. Why do you think it is?

I didn’t know if it was, that’s why I asked. Thanks for clearing up that Catholicism does not subscribe to panentheism. Is there a term for the Catholic conception?

You apprehension Catholic theology is deficient if you believe this to be the Catholic view. Equating what warpspeedpetey stated to be equivalent to the “god of the gaps” is incorrect.

You are correct that I am no expert on Catholicism.

I’m sure Petey will tell us what he meant.

No. STEM is only a part of reality. As a human being I am created in the image of God. Two of the aspects of that “image” are intellect and will.

One reason for raising the issue of STEMG is that I’ve heard by so many people around here that if God did not exist, then all there would be was STEM and morality would have no meaning. I’m glad you can recognize will and intellect as not reducing to STEM.

Best,
Leela

 

[davidv]

{snip}
If you believe in the mathematical determinism of STEM, adding a G does nothing to get you out of it that I can see. God may be free, but if we are stuck in STEM then we are not.

{snip}

This demonstrates to me that STEM + G is a strawman.

Pure determinism in human life is not evident. Humans are constantly making decisions (exercise of the will), some with minor consequences, some with immense consequences. These consequences can be “good”, “bad”, "neutral, or any combination of these.

In addition the decision makers have varying degrees of awareness of the consequence and varying levels of consideration of them. More that one drug addict took the first step knowing full well the potential for a really bad consequence. On the other end of this spectrum is the toddler you walks into traffic and gets killed without the vaguest notion of this consequence.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Hi All,

When I began posting in this forum it wasn’t long before I was accused of being a scientistic materialist. It seems that Catholics around here think that either someone believes in God or is a materialist, though there are many other philosophical positions that believers and disbelievers can subscribe to.

That is correct. To not believe in God is to be a materialist. If one doesn’t believe in God, then what one does believe in is some form or other of “nature machine” which “automatically (mechanically)” generates reality, both “seen and unseen” by us.

This is a simple binary distinction. Either one accepts one or the other. There is no other choice to choose from.

That people profess to find “other choices” is simply a statement of their confusion of the terms involved.

The term STEM seems to have been coined in this forum to refer to the view of reality as describable solely in terms of space, time, energy, and matter. It appears that people in this forum believe that without a belief in God, then one must believe in STEM.

There IS space, time, energy and matter. The “STEM” actually does exist. That they are most probably an “elaboration” of an underlying “stuff” is not relevant to the discussion, because the “STEM” is simply a label for that which is NOT-SUPERNATURAL.

That which is supernatural is very limited in “instances”. All the “instances” of the supernatural are “persons”. These “things” are God, angels, demons (aka bad angels) and human-persons (in their soul and temporal-then-“naked”-then-glorified body’s combinations).

All persons, and only persons, are given free will. Free will is an attribute of personhood.

Thus, reality consists of the “STEM” (the material “machine” of the universe), and the supernatural (the persons God, angels, demons, and humans).

As I tried to refute this idea it occured to me that the believers in this forum are much closer to being materialists than I am. They believe in STEM plus God–a material universe with a personal supernatural aspect that occasionally intervenes.

The “STEM” was created by God for us humans. The angels, and demons, were also created by God for us humans. We humans were created by God for God.

Thus accounts all things created in reality.

To believe that there IS material does not make one a materialist. To believe that reality is “an ‘emanating’ machine” makes one a materialist.

Am I correct that this is your view? If so, how can it be said that thoughts exist which are neither space, time, matter,or energy? What meaning could free will have in STEMG (STEM plus God)?

Thoughts are of two kinds: Those of persons, and those of machines.

• Persons are humans, angels, demons, and God.
• Machines are every other “constellation” of matter (“STEM”) that are not human.

Thoughts of persons are attributes of persons, and possess true free will. Thoughts of machines are attributes of “organisms” composed entirely of the “STEM”, and possessing mechanical pseudo-free-will (“the appearance of…”).

The meaning of “free will” has nothing to do with the “STEM”. The meaning of free will is the ability of the “non-STEM”, aka the supernatural, to choose (decide) non-mechanically.

Only persons (the supernatural) can do that.

For those who do not believe in God, do you think that the Catholics are correct in saying that you subscribe only to STEM in understanding your experience?

What is there other than the “STEM” and it’s “emanating elaborations” (aka “emergent phenomena”) to be a basis OF “understanding your experience” without the supernatural (created by God)?

I really do wish that some precision of language was used by these self-proclaimed “agnostic spiritualist atheists” (something that seems akin to a “scientific buddhist”).

The “fuzzy headedness” of their thinking is truly amazing. But then, that shouldn’t be terribly surprising, as their entire “philosophy” consists in avoiding clarity and making it impossible to come to ANY decisions.

To these people, making decisions is to be “wrong”, as “nothing can truly be decided upon as nothing can truly be known”.

:shamrock2:

 

[Fran65]

So, you don’t want to reply to my statement about emergence.

Some (non Catholic) theologians believe in emergence. They suggest that God is an emergent property of a highly complex, system such as the universe. I think they have it backwards.

Others call it an “unpatterned post-intellectual awareness”.

BTW the ‘awareness’ that you talk of some flowers as having is actually a standard physical process called phototropism. the light and heat emitted by the Sun lead to changes in cellular function, for example, the amount of fluid may decrease in one side of the stem and this ‘pulls’ the flower head towards the Sun.

Warpspeed has already pointed this out to you, but I thought I would repeat it as you seem not to have responded.

Finally, just a reminder: emergence. A variety of materialism. You’ll find more about it on wikipedia or the New York Times online.

.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

This is what I mean by STEMG. It sounds like you are talking about a God separate from nature or deism.

This sounds more like what you may mean to say and may be described as panentheism? Everything exists within God? Is panentheism the Catholic conception of God?

The above is exactly what I mean by STEMG. This is not a negation of STEM but rather “STEM plus God” or STEMG.

Can you explain how ading God to STEM results in free will? In your view, though God is free aren’t we still stuck with the determinism of STEM?

Best,
Leela

davidv in post #22 pretty much said it for me.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

There is a third possibility which is that this is simply a “wrong question” that needs to be unasked. I think that matter runs into trouble when we try to define what it is, so “material” may be useless as a metaphysical concept.

Multiple truths can coexist. Polar and rectangular coordinates are both correct without contradiction.

My claim was that two different metaphysical positions could cash out to the same thing. one example is people’s view on free will. I can’t see how fatalism and free will result in any different behavior. How does one behave as though she doesn’t have a choice?

Best,
Leela

multiple truths can coexist, but not if they are mutually exclusive as in my examples.

why cant you see that opposites can result in different behavior?

 

[Leela]

So, you don’t want to reply to my statement about emergence.

I definitely do want to discuss emergence with you. I just wasn’t sure if you were just popping in to take another pot shot like when you just popped in to accuse me of taking pot shots earlier in this thread and said that you didn’t want to participate in any discussion with me.

I sense a lot of hostility in you. I hope we can get past it and have a civil discussion? I should have time later this evening to get back to you.

Best,
Leela

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I didn’t know if it was, that’s why I asked. Thanks for clearing up that Catholicism does not subscribe to panentheism. Is there a term for the Catholic conception?

You are correct that I am no expert on Catholicism.

I’m sure Petey will tell us what he meant.

One reason for raising the issue of STEMG is that I’ve heard by so many people around here that if God did not exist, then all there would be was STEM and morality would have no meaning. I’m glad you can recognize will and intellect as not reducing to STEM.

Best,
Leela

its interesting that you say i provide the best explanation of what you mean by STEMG. after the fact, when your argument is questioned

 

[Fran65]

I am not hostile to you as a person. I find your discussional ‘style’ irritating. You do not respond to points that demonstrate that your argument is flawed. You move onto something or someone else when that occurs.

You frequently respond to challenge with a profession of not understanding, are unable to clarify your arguments or meaning when asked to do so and, as has been pointed out, have plagiarised others.

As for ‘pot shots’ I fail to understand what you mean? Can you clarify this for me? How are my occasional posts ‘pot shots’?
They are honest responses to your posts when I have time to make them.

Are you feeling personally attacked?

If so, you have my apologies.

 

[Fran65]

I can illustrate the problem that we face in our discussion with the example of emergence.

You have stated that *you *are not a materialist and that you find me and Catholics in general more ‘materialist’ than you are.

What you then described as your position with respect to what you term as ‘awareness’ is emergence. This, as I have pointed out is materialism.

Rather than concede this you have moved to commenting on a spurious aspect of my posts and accusing me of taking pot shots.

That is not a good way to discuss anything. It is a common way of avoiding the issue.

So Leela, are you a materialist?

 

[Leela]

Hi Fran,

I said, “I do think that individual experience such as self-consciousness ceases with the brain though there is only one way to know for sure.”

I could not resist.

This is a materialist statement. You can say it ain’t so as many times as you are willing to type it. That does not make it true.

What you are talking about - would that you knew - is emergence.

I think my position is different from materialism. I think that a certain type of thinking on emergence could be correctly considered a version of materialism, but I think there is a different view that is not is not at all materialism. We will see if I can convince you in the next post. But I am going to jump to a later post to clear something up first…

So, you don’t want to reply to my statement about emergence.

Some (non Catholic) theologians believe in emergence. They suggest that God is an emergent property of a highly complex, system such as the universe. I think they have it backwards.

Others call it an “unpatterned post-intellectual awareness”.

Though I hesitate to use the word God because I don’t mean it as a personal deity, I actually agree with you here. I mentioned four types of patterns that form an evolutionary hierarchy and talked a little about what “awareness” is like for collections of patterns of each type, but I didn’t mean to imply that what I was talking about was a “fifth level” when I mentioned “unpatterned intellectual awareness.” It is not a fifth type of pattern but a term for what the mystics of every culture have talked about using such words as God, Tao, Spirit, nirvana, Brahman, etc.

This phrase was intended to point to the ground of being that gives rise to such patterns and perhaps could explain the emergence of new patterns and higher levels of patterns from lower levels. In other words, as you say, they have it backwards.

BTW the ‘awareness’ that you talk of some flowers as having is actually a standard physical process called phototropism. the light and heat emitted by the Sun lead to changes in cellular function, for example, the amount of fluid may decrease in one side of the stem and this ‘pulls’ the flower head towards the Sun.

This sounds to me like as good example of the flatland reductionism that characterizes materialism. Reductionism is the idea that to really understand something at some level, it must be explainable at a lower level. The worst form of reductionism is to go on and then say that this lower level explanation is what the phenomenon REALLY is.

Science is not used in your example so much to explain, but rather to “explain away” (which is why I think so many people are turned off by science). I do understand the science behind what goes on with such plants, but it’s still really freakin’ cool! The fact that this biological behavior involves chemical reactions doesn’t take anything away from the fact that the sunflower follows the sun throughout the day. It really happens.

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

Hi Fran,

Emergence is a variation on materialism. It posits that properties such as consciousness emerge somehow from complex systems and yet may behave in ways that are inconsistent with its physical basis.

In addition, please don’t include my name along with the term ‘atheists’ again. It is misleading. I am Catholic. I am Theist. I am not materialist because I believe that, for example the soul exists independently of the body and that there exists a supernatural world and these are not emergent properties of a physical system(s).

I was addressing that message to you and also to any atheists out there who claim to subscribe to materialism. I have asserted that the idea of atheists as being scientistic materialists is a straw man, and I wanted to see if there was anyone who actually does claim to subscribe to that philosophy. Though I have asked before, no such atheists have emerged.

I well know that you are a Catholic and I would not want to mislead anyone into thinking differently.

You say that you are not a materialist because you believe in a supernatural world. What can you tell me about this world? You say that you believe in souls that exist independently of the body. Can you explain what you mean by soul? What is it like for a soul to live on after death? Do souls exist before earthly life? Do souls include memory and self-consciousness and awareness of what is happening on earth? You already know that I am skeptical that anyone really has knowledge of the answers to such questions, but I am interested in your idea of what a soul is like.

As for whether emergence is a variation of materialism I think the key is in your phrase “these are not emergent properties of a physical system.” If we take thoughts as an example, the materialist (possible straw man) understands thoughts as properties of a brain–everything has to be an extension of matter because matter is the only thing that is really real.

Consider the analogy of the relation of hardware to software in a computer. Suppose that right now I am plagiarizing from a novel that is stored as a word processing file. Certainly the novel cannot exist in the computer without a pattern of voltages to support it, but that does not mean that the novel is an expression or property of those voltages. It doesn’t have to exist in any electronic circuits at all. It can also reside in magnetic domains on a disk or a drum or a tape, but again it is not composed of magnetic domains nor is it possessed by them. It can reside in a notebook but it is not composed of or possessed by the ink and paper. It can reside in the brain of a programmer, but even here it is neither composed of this brain nor possessed by it. The same program can be made to run on an infinite variety of computers. So the program is in some very important ways independent of the voltages.

Trying to explain thoughts in terms of brains is like trying to explain the plot of a word-processor novel in terms of the computer’s electronics. You can’t do it. You can see how the circuits make the novel possible, but they do not provide a plot for the novel. The novel is its own set of patterns. Similarly the biological patterns of life and the molecular patterns of organic chemistry have a “machine language” interface called DNA but that does not mean that the carbon or hydrogen or oxygen atoms possess or guide life. A primary occupation of every level of evolution seems to be offering freedom to lower levels of evolution. But as the higher level gets more sophisticated it goes off on purposes of its own.

The materialist philosophy says reality is all matter, which creates mind. There is the idealist philosophy that says it is all mind, which creates matter. I subscribe to neither of these. Biological patterns,social patterns, and intellectual patterns are supported by this pattern of matter but are independent of it. They have rules and laws of their own that are not derivable from the rules or laws of substance.

This is not the customary way of thinking, but, when you stop to think about it you wonder how you ever got conned into thinking otherwise. What, after all, is the likelihood that an atom possesses within its own structure enough information to build the city of New York? Biological and social and intellectual patterns are not the possession of substance. The laws that create and destroy these patterns are not the laws of electrons and protons and other elementary particles.

Thus, thoughts do not originate out of inorganic nature explainable by the laws of physics and whatever can be observed in brain imaging scans. They originate out of society, which originates out of biology which originates out of inorganic nature. Thoughts and the laws of physics are separated by two complete levels of evolution–biological evolution and the evolution of social patterns–and cannot be understood through the flatland reductionism of materialism.

Best,
Leela

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Hi Fran,

The fact that this biological behavior involves chemical reactions doesn’t take anything away from the fact that the sunflower follows the sun throughout the day. It really happens.

Best,
Leela

it happens as a chemical reaction, you attribute it to ‘awareness’
this is what awareness is commonly known to be.

awareness
awareness awareness n.
conscious knowledge; as, he had no awareness of his mistakes.

Syn: cognizance, knowingness.
[WordNet 1.5]

plants have none of the complex neural circuitry that that is known to support ‘awareness’

a cow may kick a rock, while grazing, that doesn’t eqaute to the rock being ‘aware’ of the cows hoof.

its just basic transfer of energy from one clump of moving atoms to another clump of other atoms

you keep trying to avoid materialism, or seemingly science.
in fact you have claimed that certain things exist with no physical form in the observable universe.

i challenge you to this assertion, how can something be existent, yet have no physical form?

 

[Michael_David]

Leela, I like your #36 post. It is starting to state your resulting beliefs by reasoning.

Is a compass aware of the magnetism that makes it turn North? It must be, it responds to it… although, each exists separate of the other and neither needs the other to exist in their own form. Still, what causes the magnetism to be? Metal can be made into many things, and some into a compass needle.

If we keep going back (sorta) to what causes the effect to be, how far back can you go to find the cause that ‘is’ with no other cause needed for existence? I am referring to human existence here, and what gives a platform for the surface existence… and how many levels are in this structure of ours? So to say, finding the ‘foundation’ that supports all the other levels, and is the only level that does not need the others for support… but rather, supports the others.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Hi Fran,

I was addressing that message to you and also to any atheists out there who claim to subscribe to materialism. I have asserted that the idea of atheists as being scientistic materialists is a straw man, and I wanted to see if there was anyone who actually does claim to subscribe to that philosophy. Though I have asked before, no such atheists have emerged.

I well know that you are a Catholic and I would not want to mislead anyone into thinking differently.

You say that you are not a materialist because you believe in a supernatural world. What can you tell me about this world? You say that you believe in souls that exist independently of the body. Can you explain what you mean by soul? What is it like for a soul to live on after death? Do souls exist before earthly life? Do souls include memory and self-consciousness and awareness of what is happening on earth? You already know that I am skeptical that anyone really has knowledge of the answers to such questions, but I am interested in your idea of what a soul is like.

As for whether emergence is a variation of materialism I think the key is in your phrase “these are not emergent properties of a physical system.” If we take thoughts as an example, the materialist (possible straw man) understands thoughts as properties of a brain–everything has to be an extension of matter because matter is the only thing that is really real.

Consider the analogy of the relation of hardware to software in a computer. Suppose that right now I am plagiarizing from a novel that is stored as a word processing file. Certainly the novel cannot exist in the computer without a pattern of voltages to support it, but that does not mean that the novel is an expression or property of those voltages. It doesn’t have to exist in any electronic circuits at all. It can also reside in magnetic domains on a disk or a drum or a tape, but again it is not composed of magnetic domains nor is it possessed by them. It can reside in a notebook but it is not composed of or possessed by the ink and paper. It can reside in the brain of a programmer, but even here it is neither composed of this brain nor possessed by it. The same program can be made to run on an infinite variety of computers. So the program is in some very important ways independent of the voltages.

Trying to explain thoughts in terms of brains is like trying to explain the plot of a word-processor novel in terms of the computer’s electronics. You can’t do it. You can see how the circuits make the novel possible, but they do not provide a plot for the novel. The novel is its own set of patterns. Similarly the biological patterns of life and the molecular patterns of organic chemistry have a “machine language” interface called DNA but that does not mean that the carbon or hydrogen or oxygen atoms possess or guide life. A primary occupation of every level of evolution seems to be offering freedom to lower levels of evolution. But as the higher level gets more sophisticated it goes off on purposes of its own.

The materialist philosophy says reality is all matter, which creates mind. There is the idealist philosophy that says it is all mind, which creates matter. I subscribe to neither of these. Biological patterns,social patterns, and intellectual patterns are supported by this pattern of matter but are independent of it. They have rules and laws of their own that are not derivable from the rules or laws of substance.

This is not the customary way of thinking, but, when you stop to think about it you wonder how you ever got conned into thinking otherwise. What, after all, is the likelihood that an atom possesses within its own structure enough information to build the city of New York? Biological and social and intellectual patterns are not the possession of substance. The laws that create and destroy these patterns are not the laws of electrons and protons and other elementary particles.

Thus, thoughts do not originate out of inorganic nature explainable by the laws of physics and whatever can be observed in brain imaging scans. They originate out of society, which originates out of biology which originates out of inorganic nature. Thoughts and the laws of physics are separated by two complete levels of evolution–biological evolution and the evolution of social patterns–and cannot be understood through the flatland reductionism of materialism.

Best,
Leela

modern science completely disposes of the reality of these assertions, in each analogy you fail to realize the underlying existnce of measurable qauntum phenomenon, spwecifically that the information for both your plagairized novel and of thoughts are all carried by arrangements of physical particles, in the case of the computer, it is electrons (put simply). thoughts are physically composed of electro-chemical interactions.

with out the observable universe none of these phenomena are possible, nor even sensible by people.

what evidence do you have of these patterns? all you have offered is analogy, and assertions

as to souls, how can a non-physical pattern exist, yet a souls cannot?

how can you know anything more about these ‘patterns’ than a souls

can you defend the actual presence of any of this phenomena in any way other than supposition?

if you cannot offer some evidence then they are simply your opinion, unfit for serious debate

 

[Leela]

it happens as a chemical reaction, you attribute it to ‘awareness’
this is what awareness is commonly known to be.

awareness
awareness awareness n.
conscious knowledge; as, he had no awareness of his mistakes.

Syn: cognizance, knowingness.
[WordNet 1.5]

plants have none of the complex neural circuitry that that is known to support ‘awareness’

a cow may kick a rock, while grazing, that doesn’t eqaute to the rock being ‘aware’ of the cows hoof.

its just basic transfer of energy from one clump of moving atoms to another clump of other atoms

I understand the difficulty for you of imagining the subjectivity of a rock or a plant. It’s quote a stretch since we are evolutionarily so far removed from rocks. It may be easier to start with the cow and work back from there. Do you also believe that the cow is not aware in any way of kicking the rock?

you keep trying to avoid materialism, or seemingly science.
in fact you have claimed that certain things exist with no physical form in the observable universe.

i challenge you to this assertion, how can something be existent, yet have no physical form?

Ideas exist, yet have no physical form. To give a more specific example: the concept of the number zero has no physical form. Also materialism and science have no physical form. The concept of “physical form” has no physical form.

Best,
Leela