What if God doesn't understand consciousness?

[Carlos Allende]

So. Firstly, apologies if I'm covering old ground. I used the in-house search bar, but couldn't find nothing similar per se.

Suffice to say, it's something I've been brooding on a lot throughout 'this difficult year'™. I think the idea that God might exist -- as a kind of primal, intelligent, unifying force way down deep in the quantum miasma -- but doesn't quite understand consciousness -- I think that's a neat, elegant explanation for the grim state of the world. Y'know. That thing where the world never makes any collective progress, and we all talk-the-talk about being empathetic, but are all unavoidably greedy and doomed. 

I know the definition of consciousness is a thorny subject. It might even be the wrong word for what I have in mind. I hate it (don't you?) when people quote dictionary definitions in the middle of a discussion, so I won't do it myself. My definition would be -- not only the awareness of our own minds to the Nth degree -- but the sensation that our thoughts can go anywhere from micro-second to micro-second. Also, probably, you can't disentangle consciousness from our inclination to amplify emotions out of all proportions (which to me, is a good thing). I've often said it before in my posts: I think our minds are like grubby auld men in bookies, placing bets from second to second. We bet on whether we'll find satisfaction in life, or else we bet subconsciously, on vague, abstract, existential ideas. But there's always betting involved. Consciousness, I'd argue, is the excitement of placing those bets.

But what if God only has a 'textbook' definition of consciousness, or can only rely on our limited ability to describe it? God: "Auld men? Betting shops? What are are you talking about?"  It's quite possible the guy is omniscient in all other regards, but consciousness is in a special category. Possibly consciousness has evolved specifically to elude description by anyone or anything, becoming ever more subtle and nuanced, and therefore more worthwhile. 

A way I've been looking at it is this: say God is an author. You could easily accuse Him of being an author mostly concerned with nihilistic, unhappy endings ala Cormac McCarthy or Anna Kavan, but let's give Him the benefit of the doubt. Say there's elements of Aldous Huxley, or Graham Greene, or Virginia Woolf, where He cares about writing a satisfying, believable story, and where the protagonists are seen to work hard, philosophically. But let's also say -- still giving Him the benefit of the doubt -- that He also cares about His characters as much as anyone can ever care about anything. Now, reading novels like the Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene, or Antic Hay by Aldous Huxley, where the characters are suicide-bound as a direct result of their inner lives -- or even an old standard like Mice and Men by Steinbeck, where the characters are doomed for no other crime than being lonely and working-class -- I can easily imagine God thinking, quite reasonably, 'Well, I've made characters that are palpable, and three-dimensional, and it's a brilliant, self-contained story. Certainly the characters are sorrowful, but given that it's a good story, and everything is finite anyway, that's a fair trade-off'.

Except it's not, is it? Consciousness implies (at least, mine does), that the mind is infinite in nature, and shouldn't be shut down just by entropy, or non-intervention. My consciousness, on a really raw, basic level, tells me that I've worked hard enough that a happy ending is vital. Context is unimportant, pathos is unimportant, thinking is unimportant. Consciousness is its own thing, and it should be allowed to take care of itself in its own terms, like a work of art. Pretentious? It's allowed to be.

And for God to not understand this is fair enough, I think. As a form of gnostic religion, I think it could even win the grudging respect of atheists, since it melds traditional theistic thinking with the painstaking pragmatism of natural selection. 

It's also good politically. I've often thought, technically, there should be no difference between someone having the primal thought, in the privacy of their own minds, "WOW. I AM _ALIVE_ AND _THINKING_ AND _HAPPY_ AND THAT'S GOOD", and, "WAIT A MINUTE, I AM ALIVE AND THINKING AND HAPPY AND THAT'S GOOD, AND YET THAT GUY OVER THERE IS CURSED IN THE THRALL OF CAPITALISM FOR NO REASON AT ALL. DOES NOT COMPUTE" _(brain catches fire)_ For God to not understand this either at least sets a precedence and takes some of the responsibility off us. 

Anyway. Give us a yay or nay.

 

 

[Dreamer screamer]

It is us human beings that doesn't understand consciousness.     God can wait til the end of...................... until we learn our lessons.

[Jon the frog]

Maybe it's a good thing that the sun will sanitize this planet in a couple of billions of years, god will be p***ed off for good.

Edited January 5, 2021 by Jon the frog

[+Pettytalk]

"What if God doesn't understand consciousness, though?"

Using the words of Socrates, 'Yet, surely, to deprive God of knowledge is monstrous.'