(Logic and Some Elements of Existence)
Proposition 1 :
I am God. This really simplifies things. I am responsible for everything. Tough hey ? This means that I have to worry a lot. Alternatively, I need not worry at all. It all depends on what type of God I wish to be.
Am I really God ? I could be. I can’t really be certain of anything outside of that which I think. What I think is all that I am. Perhaps I am God and I got lonely. I therefore conjured up the world to keep myself busy. It doesn’t matter whether or not there is anything "out there" or "all in my mind". It amounts to the same thing. I made it. I live in it.
So why can’t I change things at will ? Well, that wouldn’t be much fun would it ? I wouldn’t have much fun living in the world if I was still Godlike. The game only makes sense if I am restricted and have to live according the self-imposed laws of this world. So why can’t I remember the past or predict the future ? Same reason as the above. How do I get out of here ? Why worry, I’m God. Things will work out just fine. Can I go to Hell ? I invented Hell so the answer must be Yes. It just means that I’ll have to try a little bit harder if I get there. What if Hell is for all eternity ? I am God so eternity is no problem. Eternity is human construct. A rather silly mathematical device. Human minds spin at the thought of eternity. They get confused by the idea of a heffalump. Actually, the heffalump, the jabberwocky, eternity, negative numbers and TV programming are all part of life’s rich tapestry so I shouldn’t knock it. But I don’t need it, so I’ll ignore it. Life’s simpler that way.
I am constrained by the rules of the game. My purpose is to remember who I am. Or is it to behave correctly so that I can move on ? I can’t remember the rules. Perhaps I am here to find the rules. There seem to be a lot of clues.
Proposition 2 :
I am part of God. The hip-bone is connected to the thigh-bone etc. This is a fairly accessible, and acceptable, idea. If matter and God were distinct one from another then God’s power over matter would be limited. God would be neither omniscient nor omnipotent. All matter and mind are therefore a manifestation of God. I am able to understand many things but I am confused by other things. I am able to catch a glimpse of divinity, both in thought and action. Being this way is a mixed blessing. I am frustrated by my humanness but I feel liberated by the prospect of revelation.
Life is simple. All I have to do is allow myself to be guided the divinity already in me. This is easy. If I do wrong then I will feel discomfort. I would be acting against my true nature. The "nature versus nurture" debate is almost redundant. I might fool myself that my poxy personality is due to my environment but it would really be an excuse for my intellectual, emotional and spiritual laziness.
My purpose is obvious. If I want to transcend this material world then I must live up to my divine potential. Alternatively, I can wallow in my base animal instincts and be stuck in this material cycle. I shouldn’t laugh, if I chose to be "human all too human" I might die and be dead forever. Like a rock. After all, I’ve been given a fair choice. This human choice may be God’s way of relieving himself of the less pleasant aspects of His being. Much like burning a wart off one’s nose. Alternatively, I might have to come back as a slug. My punishment for being dumb.
Proposition 3 :
I am not part of God at all. God made me the way I make scrambled eggs. I am neither the Egg nor the Frying Pan. Similarly, God is neither the Carbon nor the Cellulite in me. He just did the creative stuff to mould me.
So who made the Carbon ?
At this point I could lose my mind. If my answer is God then I land up with a "hip-bone connected to the thigh-bone" logic. This means I’m confused and should be in Proposition 2. Let’s go through it slowly....If my definition of God includes Omnipotence then God can’t create something that is distinct and separate from God. I, for example, can make somebody salute me if I were an officer in the Army. This makes me pretty powerful but I can’t make the person salute if they didn’t want to. This limits my power. So, I’m not God.
On the other hand, I can decide to move my own arm into a salute if I meet a superior officer. Or, I can give him the finger. This makes me very powerful. My arm does whatever I Will. This makes me very Godlike. But since I can’t turn my finger into a frog I don’t think that I’m God. God has control over the atoms in my finger, so he might turn my finger into a parrot to amuse himself.
The point is this ; I control my arm because I am my arm. God controls me because God is me. Otherwise God’s power is limited and then God wouldn’t be Omnipotent and, by definition, not God. This would make God god, or, one god amongst many. Anyway, a diminished God is not much use to me. My cousin the body-builder probably has more relevance in terms of the Omnipotence argument.
So, any sentence that contains both me and God cannot really distinguish between me and God. By definition I must be God in some way or other. Proposition 3 is self-contradictory. A malicious deception on my behalf. Or, is it ? We’ll see.
Getting back to the point...Who made the Carbon ? If my argument is not God, and I am not part of God (because I am in proposition 3), then why am I using the word God in my thinking ? I must be thinking of one of the lesser gods. I’m just confused.
Lesser gods are not relevant to this essay. Dealing with lesser gods would mean I would have get into the whole hand-washing, genuflecting, day-glo body-paint thing. That would be a waste of my time. My advice to you is that if you are doing a rain-dance outside the boss’s office and it works for you then go for it. That kind of belief system falls into the same category as brushing one’s teeth. It’s a secondary principle. Hardly life-changing stuff. Let’s first sort out what takes Primacy. It’s the stuff dreams are made of. God or not God. A pretty big question.
Proposition 4 :
There is no God. This is almost the same as saying that I am God because I am responsible for all of my actions. Or am I ?
There are two basic choices within this proposition. These lead to very different outcomes. The essence of the two ideas reside in what takes Primacy in one’s thinking. Most people don’t realise that the cornerstone of their entire lives is a single idea that has Primacy. If one is trying to figure out what takes Primacy in one’s thinking then just keep asking the question ; "What is the Cause of This. ?"
Without getting side-tracked into matters of Causality or the question of whether it is a valid path to follow here goes ;
A/ Matter determines Mind
I was born with no Ideas/Mind/Personality/Soul.
In the "Matter determines Mind" position one would believe that one’s interaction with the environment determines one’s personality. The argument runs, more or less, like this ; As a helpless, and cute, little bundle of untrained neurons my Mom, who is part of the environment, did things to me. I, in turn, pissed in my nappy, smacked the crib, yelled my head off and gurgled with delight. The crib was hard, my nappy got wet and my mother fed me. The environment did things to me and responded to me. I learned about the environment and about myself. I thus became defined. My biologically driven actions led to responses and these responses led inevitably to a cognitive process which is de facto my personality. The reason I’m different from Madonna is that she had a different bunch of experiences. (This doesn’t excuse her behaviour, though.) I am nothing more than the sum of my experiences.
This is a much abused, and rightly maligned, way of thinking in the social sciences. "I am not responsible. Society is. Society should be held accountable for my criminal behaviour." We’ll get into this a little bit later.
If you’re thinking pretty hard at this point you should have flashed on the possibility that this scenario doesn’t exclude God in any way since it could be a description of the Divine Plan. You would be quite right. Kind of. There is a small problem. How does one have a God without the presence of a Soul ? I’ve left out the Soul in this description. It would be an interesting Theology that said that there is no Soul yet there is a God. This would negate the possibility of an afterlife or, at least, an afterlife that we would be "aware" of. (Spare me the arguments about energy not being gained or lost in the Great Cosmic Pea Soup. It’s cold comfort if one has no Soul to appreciate one’s spiritual longevity.) It would mean that this life is all we’ve got and we had better make the most of it until the worms come eat us up. It would mean that the only reason for a belief in God is to guide us in this life (if we had any knowledge of what this God would suppose is the Correct form of action.) We have no security regarding the "afterlife". There are no rewards in an "afterlife". There is no "after". This is tantamount to there being no God at all.
Let’s get back to "Matter determining Mind". I am nothing more than the sum of my experiences....Brutal, isn’t it ? One is inclined to feel all alone in a pre-determined world. The die has been cast. Return to dust you heathen !
Actually, there are some interesting possibilities within this paradigm :
1.1/ I am just a lump of matter, no more ...no less. No "afterlife", "soul" or God. Dust returning to dust. I will be DEAD so the eternal void should hold no horrors for me since I will not be aware of it. On the other hand I could go insane right now if I attempt to grasp this Eternity of Nothingness. Who needs drugs to make to make one’s head spin ?
When Colonel Kurtz said ; "The Horror, the Horror.." he wasn’t just referring to the war.
And/Or...
1.2/ Free-Will is a stage of development like Puberty. But not as much fun. I have fewer excuses. It’s all my fault. The less I understand, the fewer my choices. The more I understand, the more choices I see. The more experience I have, the more likely I am to be able to manipulate the world around me.
On the other hand, it would be a pretty hard task to de-program oneself from one’s entire life-experience if one changed one’s mind about the fundamentals in one’s life. What makes it even more difficult is that, in the last resort, I’m human and I am bound by the human condition. En Route to this conclusion I might declare myself Free but realise that I still live in a house and not an igloo, I still speak one language as opposed to another, I eat this food but not that food. Freedom is not an Absolute. Nevertheless, it is an interesting gray area where my life can be improved. It gives one something to work on. Since there is no God I’d have to figure out Meaning or Ethics all by myself. That should keep me busy for a while.
And/Or...
1.3/ I am "eternal" because no energy is gained or lost etc. This is a fairly elegant argument that brings much comfort to those who wish to be Eternal and Atheist at the same time. Nevertheless, what is the use of being Eternal if one cannot appreciate it. The pre-requisite of appreciation would be an Observer/Participant/Being. One normally describes this Observer as one’s Soul. This particular example doesn’t include the Soul.
I’ll just have to find comfort in the knowledge that my rotting body will provide the fertilizer for the apple tree which is providing the bulk of the nutrients in your politically-correct Vegan diet. You are what you eat and sooner or later you are going to eat me. I will be eternal but I will be unaware.
And/Or...
1.4/ The "soul" is an outcome of one’s material existence. I wasn’t born with it but I will grow it as I live in this world. The point of my existence is to correctly develop and nourish this "soul". Stuff it up and I’m cat-food. Succeed and I transcend this reality. A Graduation, if you will.
This does not necessarily imply the existence of God. It does suppose, however, that one can create Soul out of the material body we were born with. Material energy can be used to create non-material energy. It also does not imply that there is a "moral" or "correct" way to do it. I’ll bet that here’s a lot of people out there willing to give me guidance though. Yeah, sure.
Actually, most thinking agnostics spend their lives in pursuit of this developmental possibility. Think Yourself into Eternal Life ! It’s an interesting proposition. As John Lennon said : "I believe in me".
In the possible absence of God I will accept all of God’s responsibilities as far as I am concerned.
1.5/ Material Being determines Mind. By now you should have figured I would get to this point. (I was really hoping to avoid some ‘isms.) This statement can be seen as either a Behaviourist or a Marxist or an Existentialist starting point. But one doesn’t have to subscribe to any of these ‘isms to see credence in the statement. In fact, there are many Marxists, Behaviourists and Existentialists who would be horrified to so "misrepresented" or lumped together with the others. Don’t listen to them. Material Being, in a nutshell, refers to how one interacts with the world.
In the Marxist camp we have the Economic Determinists who say that how one relates economically to others determines one’s thinking. The Technological Determinists refer to one’s use of and relationship with and relationships via technology determining one’s thinking. The Political Determinists...etc. This is exhausting. I’m going to have to get really brief.
The Behaviourists aren’t willing to talk about the unobservable so they restrict themselves to watching human beings find their way through the maze. My thinking is defined by how the maze precedes my existence and currently restricts my existence and how I as a human interact with it. Both my biological being and the maze are part of creating that which is my Mind. The interaction between "Humanness" and "Mazeness" define my Material Being. By the way, no-one has ever got to the Big Cheese.
Just kidding.
The Existentialists also don’t suffer the metaphysical fools much. Although they might have coffee and a cigarette with them. The Existentialists are very concerned with finding Meaning in life. They also refuse to accept that Meaning is divinely imparted. This puts them between a rock and a hard place since they also view Thinking as a lesser state of Being than Action. Meaning is only to be found in action. The more visceral the better. I create meaning by interacting with the world. This implies that if I dress in black and lie in bed all day smoking Gauloise I’m not really an Existentialist. Being a mall-rat has more Meaning, existentially speaking. Thinking is only useful if it leads to more meaningful Action. But the Mind in this scenario follows one’s Material Being dating back to the cradle.
Admittedly, neither Marxism, Behaviourism or Existentialism excludes the existence of God. It is just a bit easier thinking about them without God intervening with a bit of the "Lo, and there was the proletarian struggle" when one is trying pigeonhole other people’s credos.
The inverse of the "Matter determines Mind" paradigm would be......
B/Mind determines Matter
I was born with Ideas.
In the "Mind determines Matter" position one would believe that one is born into this world with a mind a soul or a personality depending on one’s school of thinking. This position is usually associated with a theological standpoint although it does not necessarily follow that belief in a soul, for example, is an exclusively theological position.
It’s simple proposition is that our thinking determines most of that which we do in life. Free-will is not an issue here.
It’s complex proposition is that our thinking, in some way, creates matter.
The following are some variations on this theme :
1.1/ I was born with elements of my parent’s personalities. This can be modified to include any or all of my family tree dating back to Adam. My personality is a factor of my biological being. This has nothing to do with the soul. My personality is just a peculiarity of the particular idiosyncratic neural pathways that I inherited from my parents. I am a composite but I am unique.
This line of thinking is very interesting and much beloved by scientists. It lends much credence to Eugenic and Genocidal programs. At the end of the day we just can’t escape our families. This is a toughie. Moving to Alaska is not going to get me away from all those irritating members of my localized gene-pool. When I least expect it I find myself behaving like my father. Suicide is the only solution.
On the other hand, how are you going to hold me criminally liable ? I am the resultant of some really bad sexual planning by my parents. Blame them. Please.
So where did they get their personalities ? In this riddle one has to make a decision. I now declare that Human Personality occurs spontaneously with the first human. Every time there is a configuration of cells that is human then we will have a personality and this personality is transferable to the next generation.
Does this deal with foetuses and cloned humans ? Yes, both are the result of "parents" therefore they inherit. What they are inheriting is a section of DNA solely devoted to Personality. Remove that section and what you’re left with is an Accountant. Or the cast of the "Return of the living dead".
It is obvious that, no matter how much I twist and turn, this example belongs to the "Matter determines Mind" section. Although we might call the "mind" and the "matter" simultaneous creations it is obvious that Personality is dependent on the matter that is the body.
And/Or...
1.2/ I was born with my own personality. This is a variation on the previous example. This example would have nothing to do with biological inheritance from my parents. My accidental biology is the largest part of my accidental personality. As the fusion of sperm and egg took place there started a biological process that created a new me and part of that new me was a new never-seen-before and never-to-be-seen-again personality. That is mine and mine alone.
This is the DNA argument again but Personality section is configured from scratch. I inherit Nothing.
This is a good one. If my parent’s didn’t have sex then I wouldn’t be the little shit that I am. Blame them. Again. Please.
Everyone’s unique biology defines their unique personalities. Every foetus has an itty-bitty personality to go with their itty-bitty willy. And like the willy it, hopefully, grows. Conversely, some people’s personalities never develop. Is this through neglect ?
Can I be held accountable for drinking beer and watching football matches ?
Who am I kidding ?
This is definitely a "Matter determines Mind" example. We have yet to uncover a "Mind determines Matter" example.
1.3/ I was born with elements of my previous soul. Yes, we are now into reincarnation. A simple way to look at this is to adopt the position that I cannot really know whether or not God exists but I think that my personality is defined by my soul and that this soul is continuous through many lifetimes.
If a soul is as hardy as this then there must be some purpose to it’s existence. I will have to choose a path. This is a bit of a bugger if my previous incarnation was spent pulling the wings off flies. I’ve got some catching up to do. Or have I ? Perhaps this morality thing is a bit overrated and I should follow the dictum that there is a sucker born every minute and wank off at the typewriter as I am doing now. My drivel is your enlightenment. Indeedyweedy.
There are potential pitfalls in this paradigm. For starters one cannot have a soul that takes on a "human" form because of the "chicken and egg" dilemma that stuffs up the Personality arguments we have just been through. (If I have a soul that is human and only human it has to come into being simultaneously with the human body and this would make it dependent on matter.)
If I have a soul that is not dependent on my humanness then it implies that the soul of the white ant is in some way similar to that of Mother Teresa. Is the white ant’s soul frustrated by not being able to live up to it’s full potential ?
Hang on a bit. This doesn’t ring true to me. I cannot accept that because I was a bad boy I’m going to inhabit the body of Pumba the warthog in my next life. That would imply that I will completely forget my current incarnation as the charismatic playboy that I am. Now that I think of it I can’t remember any of my previous "incarnations". If I cannot remember anything then how do I know what pitfalls to avoid in my next life. This means that my soul is wandering around from incarnation to incarnation with no possibility of growth or progress. I’ll just have to be the best warthog that I can be. Hell, I can be any kind of warthog I want to be since it won’t make any difference.
Let’s do this again. I cannot have a uniquely "human" soul if I would like the soul to be immortal and pre-date human existence. It does beg the question as to what these "human" souls were doing until humans evolved.
I cannot have a multi-purpose any-species soul because this would imply that my soul has no meaning because it cannot progress.
It almost appears that when one tries to create a paradigm in which one can have an immortal soul and yet not have a God then one has to have some specific rules :
*/ In the beginning was the Big Bang.
**/ The Soul is one of the dimensions/forces that was created during this event along with our Space/Time/Gravity Reality.
***/ Either...
1/ Souls have no memory to carry over between incarnations and cannot learn or grow. This would solve the "inter-species" problem and the "Souls pre-dating Humans" problem. This would also solve the devolvement problem. But.....it would completely ruin your chances of evolving into a higher state of Being. Damn.
Or...
2/ The human form is a physical manifestation of the soul’s desire. Evolution is the soul’s way of moving things along. Does this not make the soul godlike ? Yes, but.
The soul is a Force like Gravity so although it is all-pervasive it is tempered by other forces. (In this scenario there would be no God but one could claim that since all the forces are just ENERGY twisted in different ways then Energy must be God. Not so. Useful definitions of God include Omniscience and I’ve yet to find the forest fire that can pass a driver's licence.)
This option allows for no God and yet one can have a soul.
****/ That which I call soul is mine and mine alone. There is no reincarnation. This is the only way to solve the "memory" problem. It’s a bit clumsy to claim we forget our previous incarnations.
In spite of this there has to be transformation, i.e. My human existence is the first physical manifestation of my soul. Before that my soul was unrealised potentiality. It existed but was not self-conscious. So why did it take on a human form ? What we call humanity is the only possible outcome for a physical manifestation of the force we call "soul". All Extra-Terrestrials are either humanoids or soul-less cosmic starfish.
*****/ If soul is a force then it is an "attractive" force. The creation of a multitude of souls happened at the Big Bang. Because of their "attractive" nature all souls want to be with other souls. That’s why you want to get married. Perhaps all the souls will ultimately get together in some Grand Unification that will signify the End of Time. Just like the Big Crunch.
******/ Does this mean that there was once a BIG SOUL that pre-dates the Big Bang and might have precipitated the Big Bang ? This would be God, hey ? Yes, but if there is no intervention in our day-to-day affairs one is left without a "god" in the Judeo-Christian sense. There’s just a fragmented bunch of souls trying to find their way back home.
*******/ This is the only example I can think of where "Mind determines Matter" in a "godless" world.
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Let’s go over this again. Whether I like or not all my thinking and action is derived from some single idea or belief that takes Primacy. No matter how confused I am. Life becomes much simpler if I can figure out early on what this idea is and bring it up to a conscious level.
Many people tend to operate on a day-to-day basis using different ideas for different tasks. Some may fool themselves into believing that Revelation will occur and force a decision on them. God spoke ! Some people love confusion and complex ideas and get off on trying desperately to sort out the mess they created through ignorance. The Universities and Governments are filled with such people. Some people are afraid to make a decision regarding the fundamentals of their existence. Some are just lazy. The end result is a life filled with confusion and pain.
Simplicity forces Clarity.
I am not implying that I can Think my way to the Truth. What I am saying is that I HAVE TO MAKE A DECISION. This act will force simplicity on my life. If I make the wrong choice then reality will step in and I will be forced to change my mind slightly or radically. (More of this later).
Change is Pain. Grow up and face it.
I am also not implying that a Believer has a better life than an Agnostic or that an Atheist is better off than a victim of an Aztec sacrifice. The details that give substance to my life are made lucid by my decision but reality can be a bugger. How I deal with it is still part of the fun of being human. Nevertheless I have to start somewhere and waiting for my deathbed revelation is putting the cart before the horse. If I know what I am then I will have a better idea of how I am to relate to the world.
So where’s the clarity ?
I am either God or I am not.
I am either immortal or I am not.
IT’S AS SIMPLE AS THAT. The rest is filler.
Once these things have been decided then the rest of my life can start.
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Nevertheless.......
All thoughts about the above topics have to be tempered with the understanding that I can never observe that aspect of myself that is doing the observing. In other words, I will Never know the totality of my own self. And.....by implication if God does exist then I can never know the whole of God because that would be tantamount to observing myself.
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To be continued...
see How to Think
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This page was last updated : Tuesday, November 04, 2008