Drake: Where Are They?

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Again, I did not say minds exist without bodies. I said what we experience as mind and what we measure as body are entangled aspects of what we experience as reality. Moreover, bodies are packets of stored Information, which is continuously being accumulated. Bodies do not exist as things-in-themselves. If they did, we would have no meaningful way to relate to them.

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I can't help you clear up your confusion until you learn to stop conflating the idea of brain with brain-in-itself and the idea of consciousness with sapient consciousness (consciousness of consciousness).

Think: Do you really want to conflate the quantitative expression of Substance (brain material) with the qualitative experience of Consciousness?

IAE, I did not say that the brain does not avail the expression of consciousness, nor that consciousness can be leveraged apart from brain. I said they are entangled.

CSI: Substance, such as brain and/or body (S) is that which stores Information (I). I is that which cumulates into measurable Substance. Consciousness (C) is that which experiences what it is like for I to be accumulated into S and for determinations of manifestations of cumulations of I to unfold. Every measurably quantitative unfoldment and every qualitative appreciation entails an entangled fluxing of CSI.

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CONSCIOUSNESS AND BRAINS: Our brains are not, in themselves, conscious. Rather, they are math circuits with which Consciousness avails expression for various of its perspectives. At higher levels, such perspectives participate in appreciating how the expression of universe is reconciled to unfold.

MATHICALITY: The shape / frame of reference that our Universe presents to appear to any particular Perspective depends on locally experienced gravitational curvature, proximity of the Perspective, and its speed. There is no shape for any physical universe-in-itself that can be objectively drawn. Rather, it can only be expressed in locally appreciated mathicality.

CSI: Substance (S) is that which stores Information (I). I is that which cumulates into Substance. Consciousness (C) is that which experiences what it is like for I to be accumulated into S and for determinations of manifestations of cumulations of I to unfold.

ENTROPIC DISSIPATION INTO DISORDERLINESS AND HEAT LOSS V. EVOLUTION OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS OUT OF CHAOS:  What seems to be expanding is the space between galaxies, not galaxies themselves.  IAE, it does not appear that Information is lost.  Rather, local systems with reliable and regular heat sources (suns) seem to avail complex systems to evolve, to favor those most suited to survive and replicate.

SELF-FACTORING INFINITY:  Even if the primary from which all is derived abides as a self-factoring infinity of math-based chaos that expresses variously multiversed systems of algorithms, such a self-factoring, self-actuating infinity is not nothing.  Rather, it abides as an existential somethingness.  To the extent IT may employ systems of equation-based algorithms, that function as fluxing systems subject to internal feedback and processing of Information, who are we to think it must be dumb or entirely unconscious or devoid of organizational appreciation?

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Behind much of religion is an idea that there is more to beingness than what can be measured.  That there abides a higher basis for appreciating right and wrong, good faith and bad faith, good will and bad will.

Wannabe people-farming fascists that believe they own moral determinations as some kind of new priesthood of "moral scientists" hate that.

In some respects, I like Peterson and Harris.  In other respects, Harris especially can be incredibly juvey.

The reason many people have not forsaken higher mindedness, even as they leave organized systems of elitist dogma, may have something to do with having peered into the well of smug despotism and decided they do not like it.

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Your incapacity to say anything substantive that would incline towards preserving the republic against the allied despotism of corrupti and ignoranti is noted. There is nothing so mule headed as a fascist who believes he has the scientific moral truth.

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FACTORING PROBABILITIES AMONG PERSPECTIVES OF CONSCIOUSNESS:

Bayes’s theorem describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of measurable conditions that might be related to the event. For example, if cancer is related to age, then, using Bayes’ theorem, the measure of a person’s age can be used to more accurately assess the probability that they have cancer, compared to the assessment of the probability of cancer made without knowledge of the person's age. With the Bayesian probability interpretation the theorem expresses how a subjective degree of belief should rationally change to account for availability of measurably related evidence. Bayesian inference is fundamental to Bayesian statistics.

Subjective Consciousness functions as if measurable events of the past should be a guide. This is how "if-then" reasoning proceeds, as it filters to select for the most reliably measurable factors to guide subsequently desired results.  This can help Consciousness more in the "how" to achieve a desired result, but not so much in the "why" to desire a particular result.

The combined effect of various perspectives of Consciousness (subconsciously functioning as if commonly confirmed perceptions concerning the past should be assumed to be a "how to" guide) seems to function towards making such assumption self-fulfillingly consistent.


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THINGS AND WITTGENSTEIN:  There are not objective "things."  There are fluxing relationships that are, thanks to the uncertainty principle, not subject to any absolute, complete, or fixed measurement.  However, they are often subject to practical measurements within orders of significance, which often avails astonishing technologies.  The flux of relationships does entail the continuous transmission, reception, and reconciliation of Information.

For example, the speed of light is not fixed as a thing-in-itself, but as a constant relationship to every perspective.  To whatever the extent needed to preserve that constant, every perspective will have a differently "curved" (or reconciled or renormalized) experience of its space-time frame of reference.

When Wittgenstein-ians argue among themselves about banalities, such as whether there is an "end to every thing," they bore me.  Apart from co-dependent flux of relationships, there are no things-in-themselves, there never has been any such things, and there never will be any such things.  Every relationship that we experience, sense, measure, appreciate, or communicate concerns Information about fluxing relationships --- not any "things" in themselves.

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EVOLUTION: With regard to the evolution of societies and nations, you seem to have an incoherent appreciation of evolution, i.e., propagation of the most fit to replicate. On one hand, you assume the process is not consciously guided, but on the other you assume some natural truth about how it should be guided.

Meantime, I assume it is ok with you that I direct some of my poorer kin to your house, to invade it in order to equalize your stuff? I am partly Scots-irish. Perhaps I should retain some grudge against the Vikings and Scandinavians? They certainly increased their wealth as a product of colonization or invasion. Btw, for sanctuary cities, do you have some scale to decide which kinds of invaders should be entitled to the most generous amounts of equalizing reparations?

PATRIOTIC ASSIMILATION: When you make such remarks, it leads me to believe you do not really believe in patriotic assimilation. You prefer a hodgepodge. An unraveling of the USA. Perhaps California as three states, or a La Raza Reconquista. See https://www.heritage.org/immigration/report/patriotic-assimilation-indispensable-condition-land-immigrants: "Patriotic assimilation is the bond that allows America to be a nation of immigrants. Without it, America either ceases to be a nation, becoming instead a hodgepodge of groups—or it becomes a nation that can no longer welcome immigrants. It cannot be both a unified nation and a place that welcomes immigrants without patriotic assimilation."

ENEMY WITHIN: This new hodgepodge scientism (or bastardized philosophy) also turns our schools and then our media against the Constitutional Republic. The hatred against founding principles is seen in the divisiveness of Antifa, the calls by Crazy Maxine for impeachment, the Obama regime's fanning of the flames of Ferguson, the open border efforts of Soros, and so on.

SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR SUPERFICIAL GROUPS: From the article cited above: "Special treatment for specific groups by the federal bureaucracy implies betrayal and rejection of the principles espoused by every American leader from Washington through Reagan. This approach has contaminated our schools, preventing them from teaching civic principles and reverence for the nation—including lessons on how those principles have helped leaders repair the nation’s faults. The new approach also threatens the cherished American principle of equal treatment under the law."

LITTLE PEOPLE: Regarding "never been better for ... that can afford...."! Yup. Life is good for Barbara Streisand as she hires the little people to shelter her home from invasion, but invites all of middle class Californians to be laid open to gimmedats.

NATURAL MORAL STANDARD: You assume there is some kind of objective, concrete, true standard for degradation, apart from the consciously subjective appreciation of it. That is where you fall into error. Or, if not, please explain what this objective standard is, how it is scaled, and what it proves. Is there some "natural law" reason for favoring diversity for the sake of diversity, even if it entails increased rates of non-assimilation of patriotic values?

CHERRY PICKED CHARTS: Is your chart below supposed to be some kind of scientific indicator? Does it factor for cities of diverse populations, illegal alien populations, quality of life, Dem mayors, strength of economy, increased surveillance, better technology, changing habits for reporting crime, improved devices for home security, numbers of feces on streets? Do illegal aliens tend to report crime? Is there a projection for what the rates would have been, had there been more assimilation and less illegal invasion?

According to Bureau of Justice Statistics: "Most crimes are not reported to police, and most reported crimes are not solved. In its annual survey, BJS asks victims of crime whether they reported that crime to police. In 2016, only 42% of the violent crime tracked by BJS was reported to police. And in the much more common category of property crime, only about a third (36%) was reported. There are a variety of reasons crime might not be reported, including a feeling that police “would not or could not do anything to help” or that the crime is “a personal issue or too trivial to report,” according to BJS."

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PROFOUND ISSUE: At bottom, there is between us a much more profound issue, of which I suspect you have very little appreciation. It relates to the title for the article, Is the Godhead Conscious?

I believe there is absolute truth in the Great Commandment (good faith) and Golden Rule (good will). However, as to specifics for fleshing those rules out, much less so. That is because working out the specifics entails reconciliation among numerous subjective perspectives of Consciousness. We provide the sinews for the Reconciler. I think that reconciliatory process should be voluntary as much as feasible. It should be energized by people coming together voluntarily to participate in forums, such as churches, for inspiring people to reason together in good faith and good will. I think that was key to the American project.

For that, it seems to me that moral scientisimists have little to contribute, but much to poison. I am not sure how deaf, dumb, and blind they seem to be to a key point: To replace godly inspired voluntary good faith and good will among responsible individual citizens with so-called "natural moral science" (as indoctrinated by fake priests of natural moral science) is calculated to put the masses under the authority of corporate fascists, as they regulate impositions against freedom of expression, association, and enterprise.

Too often, what rises to the top among such fascists is not the cream. To replace the Constitutional republic with elitist open borders is to make the world one vast plantation for people farmers to farm the cheapest laborers of the desperate masses. But hey, so long as you're comfortable among people promoting that agenda.


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THEOSOPHY:

Regarding the link I provided, the online source apparently does not support its direct use. I have encountered that kind of difficulty before. When I'm really interested, I simply search the first clause of the first quotation from the link. Which I provided, along with other salient quotations.

Regarding scientism, I don't think it is honest to suggest I have used the term to condemn all scientific endeavor. Rather, I have specifically advocated that the method of philosophical conceptualization not be used if it impairs science.

Otoh, I think common sense indicates areas that are beyond scientific kin. Such as for determining or measuring precisely what existed "before" the "beginning" of our measurable universe. Or for speculating that our universe could arise or be sustained out of nothing more than math, without the qualitative involvement of any activator. Or for prescribing what is good or bad in purely scientific terms. Or for prescribing the best form of government for a particular society or culture. Or for prescribing or even defining equality of economic results among all people of the world. Or for deciding which groups should be "scientifically/morally entitled" based on superficial traits (such as color or recent status of invasive-"immigration") to gang up politically to take the stuff of other people. Or for pretending to make spiritual concepts irrelevant merely by imagining an infinity of untestable parallel universes or bubbles.

For those areas, I think philosophical conceptualization can provide at least as good an approach as over-greedy scientism and anti-theistic scientisimists. For such areas, much depends on choice of worldview. Not every political philosophy is necessarily appropriate to every society or culture.

Now, if I were from a failed culture or nation, I may be tempted to imagine I have some kind of "natural right" to invade a neighbor to "ëqualize" his stuff. However, I don't think that kind of philosophy is suitable for sustaining the modern world. I do not believe it would raise economies. Rather, I suspect it would tend more towards equalizing poverty and misery. It may even impair real science from being deployed to repel that asteroid that may have Earth's name on its trajectory.

But I do not base that on science. I base it on my judgment and experience concerning human relations and history. I do NOT call that judgment "science." In some cases, I may call it coming together to reason in good faith and good will.

For example, I happen to value a Constitution-based representative republic. Which I do not think can be sustained by importing or indoctrinating a flood of liberty-illiterates that can be easily bribed (and not to their long term good) by nefarious, godless, self-godded, people-farmers.

I do not believe you have thought through any point about "theosophism" or non-scientism "insights." I hope you do not believe that conceptual assimilations concerning social values are devoid of insight merely because their truth values cannot be proved in ultimate logic or science, outside of self-fulfilling experience. I hope you do not believe that nothing is of value unless it can be utterly reduced to 1's and 0's.

Moral conceptualism (theosophy?) can help on conditional bases. For example, if I decide to identify with the idea of a representative republic, then I can make conditional recommendations. Such as, don't swamp the nation with a majority of imported voters that value instead electing politicians that promise free stuff, often elevated based on gang identifiers (such as race, etc.)

Now, if I decide I just want to suck off the work of others, then I may prefer a gang, culture, or nation where the rulers have specialized in that sort of thing. And once they have sucked their own nation dry, I may want to emigrate with them to plague another nation with my "special sense of fairness." It's not for nothing that many liberty-illiterates want to emigrate to the West.

If you have not noticed the degradation of life in London, Paris, New York, and San Francisco, I'm afraid there's not much I can do to help you.


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SCIENTISM:

I am surprised that, for someone so apparently dedicated to science, you seem unfamiliar with the now common term of scientism.

A good primer is here: https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_scientism.html:

Scientism is the broad-based belief that the assumptions and methods of research of the physical and natural sciences are equally appropriate (or even essential) to all other disciplines, including philosophy, the humanities and the social sciences. It is based on the belief that natural science has authority over all other interpretations of life, and that the methods of natural science form the only proper elements in any philosophical (or other) inquiry.
....

Proponents of Scientism often assert that the boundaries of science could and should be expanded so that something that has not been previously considered as a subject pertinent to science can now be understood as part of science. In its most extreme form, Scientism can be seen as a faith that science has no boundaries, and that in due time all human problems and all aspects of human endeavour will be dealt and solved by science alone
....

It has been argued that Scientism, in the strong sense, is self-annihilating in that it takes the view that only scientific claims are meaningful, which is not itself a scientific claim. Thus, Scientism is either false or meaningless.

Certainly, it requires the almost complete abandonment of any metaphysical or religious discussion, (and arguably also any ethical discussion), on the grounds that these cannot be apprehended by the scientific method, which is very limiting for a supposedy all-encompassing doctrine. Some would say that proponents of Scientism merely avoid actually engaging with many important arguments.

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Since you seem unfamiliar with the concept, you probably have not thought much about tendencies loosed when corrupt or fake elites indoctrinate a citizenry into radical scientism. A society so indoctrinated will be trained to defer to so called scientific experts in every field, including morality, art, and politics. This is what I consider to be very dangerous to any citizenry that values and wants to preserve itself as comprising a representative republic. If you refuse to appreciate that, then I agree, we have very little to discuss.


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CRAPHOLES:

I do not see science as the problem so much as scientism. I thought I made that distinction clear, but maybe not. I do not see the scientism of Nazis, Fascists, or Communists as something to admire. Nor have I found them to be well adjusted or happy.

I'm not aware of any polls that would support your position on that. It may be interesting to conduct some actual polls in major cities that are run by Dem so-called moral scientists. My take is that I do not see the scientisimic axis of Leftist corrupti and ignoranti, that wants to replace the free-thinking representative-republic with elitist ruled mass indoctrination, as something to admire.

Nor do I see elitist scientisimists as fostering a better life for all of humanity "without consideration for race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc." Maybe that is supposed to be a joke? Rather, I see them fostering division, discord, misery, and hate by farming and inciting gangs based on superficial differences. Many people have lived in socialistic crapholes, but want to come to America to spit on it and try to turn it into the kind of craphole they left. Your take on San Francisco and California as exuding some kind of progressive leadership is probably very different from mine.

I think whatever you're imagining bears little resemblance to reality. But hey, everyone gets a chance to choose their worldview. To my thinking, if you like your despotic, scientismic, socialistic craphole, you should keep your craphole. But I have no desire for it.


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I DON'T KNOW:

That might be the case. And it might not. I don't think science can shed light on the question.

Meantime, we directly experience consciousness, the necessity of choices, and the need to assimilate civilizing values.

I do not have faith in science to do a good job of that. Rather, I see moral scientisimists as being dangerous to decent civilization.

But I agree that one can make a worldview (anti-anthropic) choice to conceptualize conscious good faith and good will as being of no value for any legitimate or meaningful purpose.

However, from what I see, many such people tend to be bitter, unhappy, and not much help for sustaining a representative republic instead of an elitist run despotism.


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THE RUB:

Does potential for manifestation that is not presently manifested "exist"? If so conceptualized, then perhaps we should imagine the Universe at its simplest as a superposition of presently appreciated manifestation and potentiality of non-presently appreciated manifestation.

I agree that given an infinite number of yes and no answers, 1s and 0s (yin and yang?), such would carry potentiality for simulating an infinite number of realities. Question: Would that implicate an activating and involved Simulator? Would that Simulator retain capacity to intervene (or remain involved) in guiding the unfolding simulation?

The rub: What turns math into a functioning Algorithm? What can use mere math to avail interpretations or appearances of measurable sensations? I do not think science can provide or test for such an answer. I think whatever IT ultimately is, IT is beyond the reach of mortal science, but perhaps not beyond the reach of mortal appreciation.

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THEOSOPHY:

Regarding theology or metaphysics: It's not so much that all things end, but that all appearances transition to other phases. Like an unfolding of math translations and interpretations.

My conceptual interpretation:

Substance (S) is that which stores Information (I). I is that which cumulates into S. Consciousness (C) is that which experiences what it is like for I to be accumulated into S and for determinations of manifestations of cumulations of I to unfold.

In that respect, C, S, and I are co-fundaments. But I conceptualize them not as necessarily having an original beginning point, but as always phasing, fluxng, and operating in synchronicity.

Each entails involvement with the other two. All three are innately adapted to the Math (laws of Nature) and the math Activator (God?) that regulates and reconciles them.

But may that Activator be conscious in any worthwhile sense that we can appreciate? For a purpose of inspiring hope or the assimilation of ought from is, it is not necessary that such a case be proven. Only that it be thought internally reasonable and not disproved by free thinkers.

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COMMON SENSE REGARDING WHAT IS BEYOND SCIENCE:

First, I think common sense can often differentiate between what is necessarily in the realm of metaphysics versus testable science. We do not have access to a twin universe with which to conduct double blind experiments.

Second, I thought it was you that indicated the science is settled, that the universe arose from nothing. Do you see the irony in the position you are taking now?

IAE, I do find it worthwhile to conceptualkze how the apparent unfolding of our universe may be derivative of nothing more than math and a math activator. But that is not nothing.

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COMMON SENSE REGARDING GOOD FAITH AND GOOD WILL:

Btw, I am not especially interested in the metaphysics of heaven or salvation. Though I do suspect that consciousness from one perspective or another never ceases. But what is of more interest to me is how to inspire and assimilate ought from is. I do not see science as much help for that. And I do not see decent civilization as having much chance without it.

Moreover, I suspect a lot of wannabe people-farmers have adopted some very demented codes of morality. There have been some "moral science clubs" that I think tend to support elitist despotic rule more so than a decent regard for the freedom and dignity of ordinary citizens. In that regard, I see scientism as often being in the service of, or being deployed for, conniving or even evil purposes. I suspect many Nazis, Fascists, and Communists convinced.themselves they were being good little moral scientists.

For myself, I prefer the New Testament teaching of good faith and good will. I think that had much to do with the general success of the American Project. Notwithstanding snooty pretense.common among Brits.

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EX NIHILO:

Interestingly, Krauss avows not just to be an atheist, but to be an antitheist. Perhaps he has some bias in favor of denigrating the belief system of anyone who disagrees with him? Perhaps he disparages philosophy because he is not particularly good at it?

Cosmologist George Ellis and mathematical physicist I.S. Kohli have opposed his notion and argued that many of his claims pertaining to A Universe from Nothing "are not supported in full by modern general relativity theory or quantum field theory in curved spacetime". So I don't think you can safely say the idea is proved by physics.

He says: "What would be the characteristics of a universe that was created from nothing, just with the laws of physics and without any supernatural shenanigans? The characteristics of the universe would be precisely those of the ones we live in."

Well, "just with the laws of physics" is the problem with the idea of coming from nothing. Those laws are not "nothing." In a way of thinking, those laws form an Algorithm, or a system of math. Which may entice some to ask: Well, is it reasonable to imagine a time when no math existed?

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IAE, I personally have been very sympathetic to an idea that what appears to be our physical universe (of measurable space-time-matter-energy) is a derivative of math. I only add it seems sensible to me that something is needed to fire up and continue math-ing the math. I don't see much sense in imagining that math somehow math's itself.

I am also sympathetic to an idea that our measurable universe did not suddenly arise out of a self-created pre-design. My conceptualization is that there has always been a feedback relationship between Math and a Math Activator. That gives rise to an unfolding feedback relationship among three co-relational fundaments: Immeasurable Consciousness, measurable Substance, and cumulating information.

I do not speculate or advocate whether that feedback dynamic gives rise to just one universe, a multiplicity of universes, a dissipating universe, or a yo-yo universe. I do tend to conceptualize that the feedback relationship, in one form or another, has always existed and always will exist.

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See https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-lawrence-krauss-a-physicist-or-just-a-bad-philosopher/:

Per David Albert of Columbia: "But the laws have no bearing whatsoever on questions of where the elementary stuff came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular elementary stuff it does, as opposed to something else, or to nothing at all." ...................

"The fundamental physical laws that Krauss is talking about in A Universe From Nothing--the laws of relativistic quantum field theories--are no exception to this. The particular, eternally persisting, elementary physical stuff of the world, according to the standard presentations of relativistic quantum field theories, consists (unsurprisingly) of relativistic quantum fields. And the fundamental laws of this theory take the form of rules concerning which arrangements of those fields are physically possible and which aren’t, and rules connecting the arrangements of those fields at later times to their arrangements at earlier times, and so on--and they have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of where those fields came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular kinds of fields it does, or of why it should have consisted of fields at all, or of why there should have been a world in the first place. Period. Case closed. End of story."

Albert is indeed a professor of philosophy, but he has a doctorate in physics. *******************

"That brings me to South African physicist George Ellis. When I interviewed Ellis last year, I asked him if Krauss’s book answers the question posed by its subtitle. Ellis responded:

Certainly not. He is presenting untested speculative theories of how things came into existence out of a pre-existing complex of entities, including variational principles, quantum field theory, specific symmetry groups, a bubbling vacuum, all the components of the standard model of particle physics, and so on. He does not explain in what way these entities could have pre-existed the coming into being of the universe, why they should have existed at all, or why they should have had the form they did. And he gives no experimental or observational process whereby we could test these vivid speculations of the supposed universe-generation mechanism. How indeed can you test what existed before the universe existed? You can’t.

Thus what he is presenting is not tested science. It’s a philosophical speculation, which he apparently believes is so compelling he does not have to give any specification of evidence that would confirm it is true. Well, you can’t get any evidence about what existed before space and time came into being. Above all he believes that these mathematically based speculations solve thousand year old philosophical conundrums, without seriously engaging those philosophical issues. The belief that all of reality can be fully comprehended in terms of physics and the equations of physics is a fantasy. As pointed out so well by Eddington in his Gifford lectures, they are partial and incomplete representations of physical, biological, psychological, and social reality.

And above all Krauss does not address why the laws of physics exist, why they have the form they have, or in what kind of manifestation they existed before the universe existed (which he must believe if he believes they brought the universe into existence). Who or what dreamt up symmetry principles, Lagrangians, specific symmetry groups, gauge theories, and so on? He does not begin to answer these questions. It’s very ironic when he says philosophy is bunk and then himself engages in this kind of attempt at philosophy.

When I mentioned Ellis’s critique to Krauss, he claimed that Ellis, although once a physicist, is now a “theologian.” Ellis, a Quaker, has indeed written about religion, among other topics, but he is renowned for his work as a physicist. He co-wrote with Stephen Hawking the classic work The Large-Scale Structure of Spacetime, published in 1973. Just in the past five years, Ellis, now 76, has edited one book on quantum gravity and co-written another on cosmology and has co-written more than a dozen papers on physics, according to his website.

If Ellis isn’t a physicist, Krauss certainly isn’t. So what is he? Ellis describes A Universe From Nothing as a “kind of attempt at philosophy.” The hand-waving sophistry and terminological quibbling that Krauss displayed during his conversation with Wright were also reminiscent of philosophy at its worst. Krauss, perhaps, is just a bad philosopher."


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DERIVATIVE OR FUNDAMENT:

You are claiming to prove that consciousness is a mere derivative and not a correlative fundament --- but only by assuming it. You have no provable or non-metaphysical model by which to explain how it is that, out of all manifestations possible under a given set of parameters, any particular set happens to become measurable.

Perhaps you are confusing matter-leveraged perspectives of consciousness with the fundamental quality of consciousness. Yes, organization of matter-brain synapses can extend or alter powers of consciousness or enhance IQs. But the quality of conscious experience is not "in" the matter. The conceptualization is not that matter is conscious-as-matter. Rather, the conceptualization is that each sequential manifestation of matter is correlative with an expression or appreciation of consciousness. The matter abides as or with an expression of consciousness, not as a pre-existing pre-condition for consciousness.

You seem to be seduced by scientism, i.e., the belief that the assumptions and methods of research of the physical and natural sciences are equally appropriate (or even essential) to all other disciplines, including philosophy, the humanities and the social sciences.

Descartes imagined a substance-dualist separation of mind and body, each operating independently. As if the mind could function without the body. Nowhere have I invoked such an idea. So, except to confuse the discussion or to feign superior knowledge, why do you bring it up?

I do not say consciousness is beyond self-evident or common sense experience. Only that its fundamental aspect or quality is beyond measurement. I do not conceptualize that mortal consciousness is independent of brain or body, or that body is independent of mortal consciousness. Rather, I conceptualize that mortal consciousness and body are necessary correlates --- even though the fundamental quality of consciousness is beyond scientific measure.

Now, if you believe you have an entirely quantitative way to capture that quality, please feel free to elaborate. Otherwise, I think you may be suffering under a kind of spiritually-blinkered false sense of scientific completeness.

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Ray Kurzweil predicts the Singularity by 2045. https://futurism.com/kurzweil-claims-that-the-singularity-will-happen-by-2045/

He defines the Singularity at occurring when we multiply our effective intelligence a billion fold, by merging with the intelligence we have created.

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If it were strongly evidenced that Earth is alone with sentient life, that would be argued as support both by many atheists and by many believers. Atheists would say it shows we are just unlikely happenstance; while believers would say it shows how special we are. So I don't see that as being persuasive either way.

I prefer argumentation based on the character of consciousness as opposed to anthropic arguments. Reason: Each person's consciousness is to him self evident.

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Not sure what you don't understand. Do you understand that equations must balance? Or the Conservation of matter and energy?

I see religions as using metaphors to inspire congregants to seek common moral purposes and ground. I doubt intelligent aliens would have any difficulty seeing metaphors as metaphors.

Now, as to moral scientisimists, I am not so sure. They seem to have a lot of problems. Maybe they have a condition akin to moral autism?

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Well, I did not purport a scientific theory. So you are arguing against a strawman. Concepts about beginnings tend not to be empirically testable, except possibly for internal consistency.

Regardless, are you saying there is no commonality in the existence or concept of consciousness? if so, I do not find such an implication to be creditable. Maybe you do. If so, merely stating that position is hardly to support it.

Moreover, to prove your position by calling anything contrary "post modernist" is merely to engage the fallacy of name calling. It sounds like you are bending over backwards to tell people not to believe in anything except a universe that is entirely dumb and happenstance? If so, at the end of the day, your position reduces to a non-provable assumption about a metaphysical origin.

I directly sense my conscious beingness without need of name-calling to tell me I am wrong. Now, that may not apply in your case, and if so, that is fine.

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If the quality of conscious experience of beingness is derivative of nothing more than math as it is being mathed, that would seem pretty supernatural. Whatever the derivation, we don't have much of a non-supernatural "explanation" that is completely satisfactory. I posit that everyone takes a leap of faith of some kind. What I find most funny is those that think they go about their lives without engaging in leaps of faith.

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Regarding Reconciling Consciousness: I think there abides a commonality among all perspectives of consciousness. However, each perspective is differently leveraged in respect of its relationship with the field of math. Even so, every perspective is reconciled to the field of math. But for unfolding reconciliations among math-based equations, how could any communication or signal be sent or received?

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(Caution: Cannibas may help.)

Is Consciousness a fundament to the Universe? If so, where are the signals to be decoded from other sentient life?

We may vaguely intuit, but seem not fully aware or conscious of, a quantum level for the expression or "in-forming" of consciousness, as a fundament. We have leveraged capacity to send and receive signals to and from vast distances within our known universe. Now we look around and wonder: Where are the other planets that harbor intelligent life? Where are their signals? WHERE IS EVERYBODY?

Of course, there is much speculation supported by many speculative arguments. Using various modifications for the Drake Formula, it may seem reasonable to suppose that, even out of billions of trillions of possible planets, Earth may be the only one to our time-sense harboring intelligent life.

The number of stars in the observable universe may be about 20 billion trillion. If Earth is the only planet with sentient life that is contemporaneously observable to us, what may that mean? May it mean:

CONTEMPORANEITY: That any record of intelligent life on other planets winked out before intelligent life evolved on Earth? Or, that light from stars recently or now supporting intelligent life has not yet reached Earth?

INABILITY TO GET ALONG: That other planets that developed high-tech sentient life blew themselves up because of internal discord before they developed capacity to signal other planets?

INFESTATION: That other planets that developed high-tech sentient life were laid to waste because of internal disease before they developed capacity to signal other planets? other planets?

INSTABILITY: That other planets had insufficient environmental variation or climate stability to induce or sustain photosynthesis or cellular based organisms?


ASTEROIDS: That other planets that developed high-tech sentient life were blown up because of external events (asteroids, gamma rays, exploding stars) before they developed capacity to signal
TIRED OF LIVING: That other planets that developed high-tech sentient life decided the experience was too troubling and so they reduced themselves?

CLOAKING: That other planets that developed high-tech sentient life have been subsumed under Borgdoms that are desirous of cloaking and concealing until they satisfy themselves that other planets are friendly or safe? Have they worked to muffle our capacity to receive external signals? Are they muffling their signals in background radiation static and noise? Are they signaling at a quantum level that we have not yet been able to decode? (Is the moon hollow -- lol.)

CLOUD ABSORPTION: That other planets that developed high-tech sentient life have been subsumed under Borgdoms that that are satisfied to explore virtual worlds and possibilities "within," so they feel no need to signal other planets?

WORMHOLED TO SAFER ENVIRONS: That physical existentiality is just a way station to a quantum (cloud-dimensionality) plane of conscious experience? Have they wormholed their way to a safer universe?

SINGULARITY: What if our experience of a physically measurable and apparent universe can reasonably be conceptualized as a derivative --- secondary to nothing more than a field of math that is "mathed" with a fundamental, Reconciling Consciousness (Singularity)? What if each perspective of Consciousness is not, in itself, "ïn" any place-time? What if being in a place or time is a mere illusion, derivative of math being mathed ("mathicality")?

In that case, to find the Reconciling Consciousness, it would not be apposite to look "in" the apparent universe. Rather, it would be necessary to look within the math of our own experience of consciousness (to seek "the better angels of our nature"). It may be that the other perspectives of consciousness that we seek beyond Earth have migrated to a higher or more reconciling dimensionality of math-based (quantum) existence.

Some programmers and mathematicians seem to be speculating about the possibility of immortality "ïn" a quantum-based "cloud." Some speculate that we are on the cusp of such geometric accelerations of computational power that we are fast approaching a "singularity."

QUESTION: What if every extraterrestrial civilization that approaches such a computational cusp tends first to be blown up by internal or external division, or to find ways to cloak rather than to signal its math-based whereabouts, or to migrate to a quantum-based cloud? What if the apparent universe is simply like a womb for nurturing new entertainments and experiences for the Singularity?

In answer to "WHERE ARE THEY": Perhaps "they" are cloaked and waiting in quantum-based, extra-dimensional singularity, where "they" are "hardened" and reconciled against external destruction.

COMMENT: If their signals were of a system-wide reconciling character, they would be interpreted by the scientifically inclined of Earth as if they were mere non-sentient phase shifts.

Evolutionary Complexity out of Randomness

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GIBSON ASSEMBLY:

Re:  "As to your atempt to claim that I’m asserting that we’re activly engineering our DNA, which I never said. Well that’s just stupid. Don’t be stupid please."

You should search Gibson Assembly.  In fact, we are even teleporting dna assembly.  See recent talk on TED.  Also http://miller-lab.net/MillerLab/protocols/molecular-biology-and-cloning/gibson-assembly/.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_assembly (you may have to go to Wikipedia and search under Gibson Assembly, since the link is finicky):  "The Gibson Assembly method can also be used for site directed mutagenesis to incorporate site-specific mutations such as insertions, deletions and point mutations."

To say engineers are not already programming for dna assembly and mutagenesis is simply to be uninformed.  You simply guessed wrong, no getting around it.

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ENTROPIC DISSIPATION INTO DISORDERLINESS AND HEAT LOSS V. EVOLUTION OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS OUT OF CHAOS:  What seems to be expanding is the space between galaxies, not galaxies themselves.  IAE, it does not appear that Information is lost.  Rather, local systems with reliable and regular heat sources (suns) seem to avail complex systems to evolve, to favor those most suited to survive and replicate.

SELF-FACTORING INFINITY:  Even if the primary from which all is derived abides as a self-factoring infinity of math-based chaos that expresses variously multiversed systems of algorithms, such a self-factoring, self-actuating infinity is not nothing.  Rather, it abides as an existential somethingness.  To the extent IT may employ systems of equation-based algorithms, that function as fluxing systems subject to internal feedback and processing of Information, who are we to think it must be dumb or entirely unconscious or devoid of organizational appreciation?

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Out of all possible choices, that which determines what actually manifests is an expression of consciousness. But perhaps you are of the school of metaphysics that believes that all possibilities are somehow required to become manifest in some universe? In that case, I suppose it would be possible that you are an unconscious bot.

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INFESTATION OF FASCISTS:

I doubt Obama attacks the truly wealthy that support his program for global (open bordered) fascist (elitist speech controllers) despotism (people farming by tribal elitists).

Obama's attack is against the free-thinking, competent, middle class. His attack is against people that are not sheeple anti-Americans. Obama's base consists of wealthy people farmers and incompetent wannabe farmees. IOW, people that detest the ideals that made America great.

They come to America to seek handouts in exchange for votes, then they vote to turn America into the same kind of crap hole they emigrated away from. Those are the people that give Obama and his ilk their power. So they make all opponents out to be scapegoats and lie in order to brand them as "white supremacists."

The reality is, everyone that legally comes to America is invited to develop their talents, become competent, and contribute towards a fulfilling society. The problem is that wannabe people-farmers invite and coddle the worst of the worst.

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SWAMP GAS:

The Swamp is working full time, devoting much of its resources to laying elaborate traps for DJT. In Russia, the Swamp was prepared to marshal all its forces, no matter what Trump did or said. Same with everything Trump does.

The Swamp has no principle except to serve itself at the expense of Americans and everyone else. It lies, cheats, confabulates, and lays traps. It's pinkie wagging and grossly perverted elites (Will, Brooks, Whoopi, Soros, Obama, CNN, McCain, Romney, Hillary, Schumer, Cuomo, Bush, and on and on and on) are not especially smart and certainly not virtuous. They are simply opportunistic crapheads, joined in a common cause of protecting their illicit gains.

Nasty bubbles of swamp gas, they are.

EDIT: The Swamp, by infestation and division, now rules every organized institution. Having corrupted every institution, including churches, the Swamp tries to weaken the assimilated faith of Americans by complaining of the corruption that the Swamp has put into every organized institution. In effect, the Swamp tries to demoralize every attempt to fight it by arguing that every organization that could fight it has been corrupted beyond any possible redemption. Then the Swamp says we should abandon hope and faith, even faith in the basic decency of one another. Such good and fine keepers, these swamp denizens are ... not.


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INSPIRING RELIGION:

I can't think of an inspiring religion that does not use inspiring poetry and metaphors. But I think you miss the main point. Do poetry or literature express truths? I think your understanding of what is evidence for quantitatives versus qualitatives may be confused. Perhaps you are a bit blind concerning how much you are missing in life?

When you restrict yourself to trivialities, truisms, and technologies, you miss the most important truths. They abide with the self-evident truth of the interconnective interdependence of perspectives of consciousness (empathy). as consciousness seeks fulfillment in pursuing qualitatives (like music and metaphors) availed with Beingness. Apart from the five senses, there is also the sense of balance and the sense of being. The truth is, we pursue fulfillment and happiness more than we capture them.

The truth of our empathetic inter-connection was well represented by Jesus and various other spiritual teachers. Such as in the Great Commandment (good faith) and the Golden Rule (good will). Now, if you say such empathies are innate to at least some extent, I agree. They abide as innate, self-evident, qualitative aspects of conscious beingness. (Dawkins even invoked the idea of "selfish genes" that somehow seek to propagate themselves.) Too bad it so often takes Saints to push the idea of a Source of innate empathy through thick skulls! Those abide as qualitative truths, not quantitative truths.

Now, you can deny that and call it a lie. But then, what is driving you to believe in any "truth" that you "should" do that? Are you seeking to "better" society? Why so, if you do not believe in any qualitative truths?

Tyson denies God is good. In doing so, he necessarily implies he has some standard for measuring or determining goodness by which to judge God. Well, allrighty then. What is the character or nature of his standard? By what consistent and coherent standard does Tyson judge God, either qualitatively or quantitatively, to be not good? Is Tyson's existentiality not a good? Are his opportunities to face challenges not a good? What can he reasonably say about his faith concerning what is good (or worthwhile)?

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I did not conflate all atheists with militant atheists. So I have no problem agreeing that it would be error to conflate all Christians with Nazis.

The Nazis confiscated church property and closed Christian schools. They were hardly Christians, except for the purpose of re-manufacturing Christianity to support the Nazi agenda. For that, they sought to eliminate the Old Testament, eliminate the Pauline epistles, and eliminate the Book of Matthew. They did not like the idea of welcoming other races, nor did they like the idea of hell. Some wanted a return to Nordic fables and some said Jesus had Nordic blood. Compare The Myth of the Twentieth Century, by Alfred Rosenberg.

I doubt many good studies have been done to compare the private religious beliefs of prominent Nazis with their public demagoguery. However, in speeches, Hitler did find it convenient to preach that Christians had a duty to fight against Judaism.

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TRUTH:

So you have the truth? Lol. I suspect the only truth you have is in trivialities, tautologies, and technologies.

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PERVERSE BLINDNESS:

To incentive production over sloth, it is necessary to allow producers to earn more. To preserve a nation, it is necessary that gangster sociopaths be restricted from acquiring so much wealth and influence that they are able to buy up or sell out politicians, media, academia, and leaders for assimilating values. To facilitate decent civilization, it is necessary that decent people address both needs. Too many people recognize one need, but keep themselves blind to the other. The consequence is the pollution of every institution, the over promotion and over representation of gangster sociopaths, and the general farming of the populace. The first step to recovery is to recognize we have a problem.

Some people of blinkered vision see only that bad effects of organized religion. But bad effects can belong to EVERY kind of organization. Especially as more and more institutions fall under the power and control of the most corrupt of competing tribalists and gangsters. The solution is not to ban people from organizing in respect of their favored myths, metaphors, and motives. The solution, if there is one, begins by recognizing how tribal sociopaths (so called elites) can tend to discover and use ways to school the masses so they want to be used as farm animals. And then rationalize and excuse themselves.

So, is militant atheism the "right" religion?

Some people of blinkered vision see only the bad effects of organized religion. But bad effects can belong to EVERY kind of organization. Especially as more and more institutions fall under the power and control of the most corrupt of competing tribalists and gangsters.

The solution is not to ban people from organizing in respect of their favored myths, metaphors, and motives. The solution, if there is one, begins by letting people learn how to recognize tribal people-farmers (so called elites and their militant stooges) and how such sociopaths tend to discover and use ways to school the masses so they want to be used as farm animals. And then to rationalize and excuse themselves.

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ERADICATING RELIGION:

Key words: Our (current) global conflicts. So, do you ignore the first half of the 20th Century (concerning Nazism, Fascism, and Marxism, to extrapolate from our current conflicts in order to opine that, but for religion, humanity would be much more peaceable? Please refer me to the War College material that supports a notion that religion is the most significant factor in the history of human violence and war, rather than a convenient rationalization.

Are you upset that Christians were inspired to stop Islamic onslaughts at Tours and later at the Gates of Vienna? Or to stop the Nazis or to stand up to the Cold War?

I do not say that Christianity and Islam have not been used to front rationalizations. I certainly believe that Islam prepares uneducated mass-minds to commit atrocities (I remember Iran and Iraq). And I am well aware of Europeans coming to America to get gold in exchange for ministering Christianity. My point is, the Europeans would have sought the gold with or without Christianity. Do you deny that?

I get that mind-control freaks find ways to agitate minds into fanaticism. And often the memes they start live long after their demise. My point is that mind-control freaks will find ways to agitate minds into fanaticism, regardless of any particular religious metaphors. Scarcity, famine, disease, jealousy, and prejudice will drive human beings --- regardless of their abstractions about religion. So I think anyone who believes most of humanity's troubles could be removed simply by eradicating religion is on the errand of a fool.

IAE, apart from telling me how many places you've lived, I do not see so much evidence of actual insight. Regarding Wikipedia: Do you dispute the idea of memes? If not, Lol! Hint, Son: Just because an idea is conveniently summarized in Wikipedia does not mean it is wrong.

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See https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/14/religions-war-cause-responsible-evidence_n_6156878.html?guccounter=1:

"The Encyclopedia of Wars, an extensive study published in 2008, chronicles 1,763 wars throughout human history. It names just 123 as 'religious in nature' – a little under 7%.

The Institute for Economics and Peace report also found that having less religion in a country doesn’t make it more peaceful. The proportion of atheists in a country had no bearing on levels of peace.

Countries with the highest levels of atheism – mainly communist or former communist states like Russia and the Czech Republic – were not necessarily the most peaceful. North Korea, which has one of the lowest rates of people practising religion, was one of ten 'least peaceful' countries in world last year, according to the report."

...............

"Rachel Woodcock, a Muslim-Australian writer, believes that religious divides have become more pronounced in recent wars. “Religion has taken on extra significance today because globalisation is challenging and changing everything. Religious identity not only survives but can take on heightened significance when national and political alliances break apart, as happened in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, when Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs were divided along Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim fault lines," she writes in the book For God's Sense.

Woodcock points to Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein, who gassed and bombed the Kurdish people yet made a show of praying to Allah on television. “Religion, unfortunately, provides a useful cover and powerful motivator for the evil-hearted," she writes. "That religion can be so markedly different in the hands of the power-hungry, as opposed to the altruistic and virtuous, really says more about human psychology than it does about religion. That's why so many human conflicts unfortunately involve religion.""

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MEDDLING:

Of course there is meddling! There is always meddling. But was the meddling a determining factor in the election? Was it meant to elect Trump or to destabilize the political system of the USA? Do some world leaders legitimately prefer one candidate over another?




It is convenient for Putin now to say he preferred Trump. But is that mere after-the-fact convenience? Why would Putin have preferred the guy who is doing the most to re-arm America? Who can say whether he expected Hillary to win and simply wanted to bloody her nose?




What should we do about the meddling? Should we open borders or hand out driver's licenses as methods for establishing rights to vote? How convenient for the Left is it now to say it disavows Putin even as it is obvious to everyone that its base "feels the Bern," wants free stuff, and prefers socialism or communism to capitalism?




Who is hyping the meddling and why? Do they really care about the meddling, or only find the meddling meme convenient to use to try to remove Trump because he impedes their fascist plans for an "open society" (borderless)? The base of the Left is either corrupt or it is stupidly being had.




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When you say at the root, that is where you are confused.  You are mistaking correlation with causation.  To think the violence and wars of antiquity and modernity would have been avoided but for religions is silly, imo.

A religion can be thought of as a complex meme.  Every meme, whether deemed religious or not, that relates to complex socio-political values, carries potential for facilitating violence as cultures with different values come into contact, cooperation, or competition.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme:

"A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture—often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning represented by the meme.  A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.

Proponents theorize that memes are a viral phenomenon that may evolve by natural selection in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution. Memes do this through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance, each of which influences a meme's reproductive success. Memes spread through the behavior that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others may survive, spread, and (for better or for worse) mutate. Memes that replicate most effectively enjoy more success, and some may replicate effectively even when they prove to be detrimental to the welfare of their hosts."


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If you seek to do what is "right" as opposed merely to what is convenient or pleasurable, then you are expressing higher-mindedness, which tends not to be provable with mere science. IOW, ineffable metaphysics. You do not dishonestly claim to know God intimately, but you do intuit innate right from wrong. You are expressing your beliefs concerning higher-mindedness in the symbols of actions, instead of in the mere vibrating exhalations of air.

The problem for civilization is that not everyone shares the same exact notions about right and wrong. To be able to accommodate one another, they need ways to come to reason together, voluntarily. Churches can accommodate and inspire some of that, without requiring every congregant to agree on every metaphorical point of dogma.

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Confusing insightful faith with knowledge. How do you know miracles are not the acts of space aliens? One can know trivial truths by definition and one can know one's general interpretations of sensations and sense of being. Not sure what else one can know. However, one can have tested confidence. In that case, the line that fluxes between belief and doubt may be based in study and experience.

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What successful spread or promotion of socio-political values has not entailed use of the sword? Have not Communism/Fascism and the Military-Industrial Complex been spread with the sword? How does impugning religion for reliance on the sword for defense or propagation enlighten any analysis?

IAE, there may be a difference of scale worth noting. The doctrine of the New Testament seems to have more to do with inviting and convincing believers than with hiring thugs to slay unbelievers. But yes, every doctrine that is successfully fronted for replacing another seems soon to entail violence by some of its most successful proponents.

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Appeals before appellate courts are a kind of polling. From the failure of NBC \ Vattel proponents to win much in court, it is evident most judges do not buy what they are selling. The analysis Mike Ramsey came to is one I arrived at before I read his article.

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EVOLUTION OF MEMES:

Memes that successfully endure and replicate replace memes that do not. A new myth/metaphor may start out as an insight that helps communicate good faith and good will. As it spreads, leaders need to become aware of it and deal with it in ways to legitimize and consolidate their leadership.

As the meme spreads, a feedback relationship settles in, between a general populace and its leadership. Apologists smooth the rough edges of the meme, to make it more palatable or more inspiring. People become comfortable with the meme, and its metaphors become useful for inspiring people to assimilate values and purposes.

The people that denigrate such memes do not necessarily do so to seek betterment for humanity. Many simply want to unsettle, divide, and throw off old ways and leaders in order to opportune their own ways and power. Stripping religious memes to their essence for promoting good faith and good will, they may trend to polishing and applications for social betterment. Thus, myths and memes may become valuable parts of the language of metaphors.

Some meme is bound to evolve to fill the need. As it happens, that does not seem a bad thing.

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OBSERVER TAKING A MEASUREMENT:

For resolving quantum uncertainty, I wonder what it "really" means in physics to "take a measurement"?

Regarding relationships between qualitatives and quantitatives:

Some believe that wave functions are collapsed when an Observer takes a measurement. But the Observer need not take a precise measurement; it tends to suffice simply to make an observation. A qualitative observation may suffice to collapse quantitatively measurable energies into measurable matter.

The Observer need not precisely determine a choice regarding the quantitaitves to be collapsed or measured. It seems enough that the Observer receives Information, appreciates it, and qualitatively interprets it.

People tend to think of an Observer as being self aware. But I doubt conscious self awareness is necessary to avail every packet of informational uncertainty to become resolved into a measurable expression of certainty. I suspect subconscious observations often do just as well.

But I wonder if the level of consciousness needed may have something to do with the level of a packet of informational uncertainty? At some level, must every cumulation of Infomation entail an expression of consciousness relating to the receiver/recorder of the new Information? I do not say an inanimate object need itself be conscious, for example, when it absorbs heat. I only suggest that some correlative expression of consciousness is entailed. Not that matter (whether called inanimate or animate) is itself the consciousness.

I do not think we have free will in the sense of precisely determining the measurable (quantitative) upshot of every choice. We do appreciate (qualitatively) and interpret what we sense and observe.

In that sense, the way we involve ourselves with materials around us seems comparable to the way we use icons on a computer screen. We don't precisely control the upshots, but, with patience, we soon enough hit upon results that we desire and appreciate. With careful tinkering and design, we often can eventually hit upon and coordinate astonishingly useful icons and levels of reliable accuracy.

How and what we become trained to appreciate seems to affect the range of what remains potentially available to unfold before us. (For example, media training the masses to find pleasure in accepting de-definitions of marriage and family avails new (not necessarily "good") kinds of civilizations to replace the ones we have had.)

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DERIVATIVE APPEARANCES:

I would paint the lily to ask: What concepts are most effective for producing and sustaining a civilization as it unfolds in relating the finite to the infinite?

Suppose, whatever the universe, space-time-matter-energy are all appearances, derivative of "things" that, but for their relationship, would not express space-time-matter-energy?

For example, does the existentiality of math depend on space-time-matter-energy, or only on a potential for the expression of space-time-matter-energy? Until something coordinated with math to give expression to space-time-matter-energy, they would exist only in potentiality, not in manifestation. If so, what produces the appearance of their manifestations? I don't see it making sense to conceptualize the math as "mathing itself."

Would it be more useful to conceptualize that Something puts "fire in the math," to activate it and to avail the expression of space-time-matter-energy to unfold with it? Would it make sense to conceptualize that Activator as something or some quality beyond measurement in itself, without which neither the math nor its activation would make sense?

I do not think of the Divine as a subset of the manifest Universe. Rather, I think of the manifest Universe as something that would not be capacitated to exist in the absence of the Divine (Activator of Math). "In and out" are concepts relating to space-time-matter-energy. I do not see such concepts as being necessarily or logically applicable to that with which manifestations of space-time-matter-energy are expressed.

Suppose time for mortals is a derivative experience of sequential activations of nothing but math. But for such derivative experiences, the potentialities of math might simply abide, not giving expression to sequences or time. I think of time as a "protection device for experiencing chronological sequences in math." Absent an Activator or Observers at some level, such potential sequences would seem to exist, at most, as fuzz --- not as a quality of "time." (Likewise for distances in space and for expressions of measurable Substance.) Whatever the manifestation of universe, it would depend on experiences of some arbitrarily algorithmic imposition of parameters relating to the potential infinities of math.

Whatever the Algorithm (math) and its Activator, they themselves do not exist as derivatives of space-time-matter-energy, yet the unfolding expression of space-time-matter-energy remains entirely dependent upon them.

So I tend not to conceptualize the defining Algorithm or its Activator as either "within or without" space-time-matter-energy. Rather, I conceptualize that space-time-matter-energy simply would not manifest in their absence.

I think the Divine has a function separate from the Algorithm (whether it avails manifestation of universe or multiverse), but I do not conceptualize either the Divine or the Algorithm to exist in the absence of the other. IOW, I think they "interpermeate." (Niebuhr used the term "interpenetrate.") They are like two sides of one fluxing coin. Or a fluxing symbol of Yin-Yang.

Regarding myths: I think they are like metaphors. And I do not think either science or value-assimilation can proceed very well in the absence of metaphors (models).

I seem unable to be confident of limitations of the potentiality of the Algorithm, the Divine, or Infinity. I can conceptualize about the character of mortal Consciousness, and I can imagine that some of that character may apply to the Divine, but I do not imagine much else about limitations of the Divine.

For purposes of bringing models down to human use, I can conceptualize how Consciousness needs feedback with experiences of Substance in order to leverage its potential. At less than holistic level, I can "scientifically" conceptualize how Consciousness, even at the level of the non-self-aware or sub-conscious, can be leveraged to evolve in a process of order arising from chaos. Perhaps even towards Type IV levels as discussed by Michio Kaku.

If considered reasonable for the Divine to be interested in the unfoldment of lower levels of Consciousness, then it would not seem unreasonable to conceptualize a feedback relationship in the unfolding development and reconciliation of mores.

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Musing by replying to myself: A MATHEMATICAL MATRIX BETWEEN ETERNITY AND INFINITY:

Imagine no-thing but math, that, if potentialized "between eternity and infinity" as a meta-Algorithm, could avail expression of space, time, matter, energy. Until such algorithmic potential were somehow released or activated, what would such a field of no-thing but math "look" or "feel" like? Perhaps, no-thing.

How might the potential of such a field of math-based possibilities be activated or expressed? Whatever availed it to produce unfolding sequences of experiential interpretations or appearances, it would seem to be something necessarily metaphysical, like Consciousness capacitated to "move through" the math via varying perspectives interpreting varying appearances --- but all normalized, reconciled, and conserved to whatever the shared Algorithm.

All perspectives under the Algorithm would be subject to the same parameters for simulating experiences under it. Whatever perspectives came to be leveraged with the Algorithm with awareness-of-self would be without means to imagine what any time or math-activated sequence before the system of space-time-matter-energy that they came to interpret under the Algorithm would "look like." For all they could know, whatever availed the Algorithm would have "always" been meta-existent.

PHASE SHIFTS:

In "moving through" different "parts" of the Algorithm, Consciousness would seem necessarily to take on numerous variations of perspective.  Which would seem to lead to numerous variations of communicable sequences.  If Perspectives can leverage Substance to enhance their levels of Consciousness, may the Reconciling Activator leverage different capacities of the Algorithm, even leading to phase shifts in universal parameters?

DOES INFORMATION EXCHANGE ENTAIL CONSCIOUSNESS AT SOME LEVEL:

Only during exchanges of Information does the potentiality of Substance become manifest for recordable locations in space-time. Between such exchanges, the relative location of a particle would seem to be fuzzy and spread out. As Information is exchanged, may such exchange trigger proximate exchanges? May this trigger Information throughout a system to cumulate (collapse?) to stored manifestations of Substance?

But what is facilitating-determining-appreciating the exchanges of Information between particles-bodies-brains (whether massive or massless) of Substance?

Whatever IT is, attempts to measure IT seem to render aspects of IT uncertain. As IT facilitates-determines-appreciates exchanges of Information, may IT reasonably by conceptualized as being an expression of Consciousness? In that sense, may Consciousness reasonably be said to be entailed with every exchange or cumulation of Information among transitory particles of Substance?

DOES THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE SELF-ACTUATE RANDOMNESS:

Randomness seems to be expressed throughout nature. In mutations, radioactive decay rates, Brownian motion, photon hits during double slit experiments. Eventually, complex patterns seem to build up, as various patterns find advantages within their niches for them to endure and replicate. Order out of chaos.

So, does Math somehow "math itself" via evolutionary processes, with no fundamental need for complex determinations to be made by any Conscious Determiner, except as emergence from happenstance?

A believer in Pure Materialism might easily be led to believe that complex orders, even levels of Consciousness, tend to emerge naturally out of chaos. To them, the random heart of natural expression leads to complex civilizations, with no meta guidance needed. Or, that if there is a meta-source, it functions purely "outside" our system, only to test systems like ours via simulations --- with which it need feel no passionate connection.

But how consistent and coherent is such a philosophy, really? On one hand, its proponents recognize that the general trend for measurable Substance is towards entropic disorder, not order. On the other hand, they seem to recognize that Information cumulates and is preserved. (Caveat: It remains speculative whether or not our universe preserves all its Information ) So, they believe Substance tends to disorder, Information tends to preservation, and Consciousness is only an emergent and non-fundamental byproduct.

If random atoms around them were suddenly to reformulate themselves as a jet airplane, they would sooner attribute that to space aliens than to a sign from a meta-consciousness intervenor.

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Alternatively asked: What puts fire into the math-based laws of nature? What actuates the math? Many answers revolve around an idea of consciousness.

Various notions are being developed concerning the role of consciousness in our universe. Some of them seem to be as follows: (My preference is for Numbers 6 and 7.)

1) Consciousness is that Emergent which, by increasingly complex organizations evolving out of chaos, becomes aware of sensations relating to its surroundings and sometimes itself.

2) Consciousness is that Force which, by taking measurements of its surroundings, seeds them to collapse, cascade, and emerge into appearances that are measurable and communicable to like-sensing perspectives.

3) Consciousness is that Fundament which, by taking measurements, collapses wave energies into manifestations of material particles.

4) Consciousness is that fundament which, by taking measurements, splits each universe into multiples of universes.

5) Consciousness is that which, upon the rendering certain of packets of informational potentialities and possibilities, may emerge as a consequence of order evolving out of chaos.

6) Consciousness is that fundament which, by taking measurements, renders packets of informational potentialities and possibilities certain.

7) *Consciousness is that fundament which, by functioning as numerous separate but connected perspectives that interpret and take measurements relating to the system of math that controls parameters for the universe we share, reconciles our apparent universe to unfold to our appreciation.

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All such notions are, at some level, fundamentally metaphysical. Yet, there abides a general bias against Numbers 6 and 7. Rationalizers posing as pure scientists seem to presume there is something about Numbers 6 and 7 that may entail godlike ideas, but that the other numbered ideas can be managed to rationalize against metaphysics and god and to promote science as a kind of be-all end-all. (Better a metaphysics of many worlds than a metaphysics of God.)

By making assumptions to "prove" or evidence assumptions, arbitrarily defining and limiting terms to relate to selected measurables, cherry-picking among measurables to consider, using jargon and writing elaborate math-based proofs of circularities (string theory is a non-evidence-able but elaborate and internally consistent rationalization), and being careful to avoid referring explicitly to god or metaphysics, many articles can be written, approved by peers, and published in "scientific" journals.

To my conceptualization, Number 7 best describes the metaphysics of how space-time-matter-energy are availed and interpreted to be apparent to our experience. Without Consciousness functioning as numerous perspectives, there would be no severable but reconcilable experiences of loci of space-time. There would be only unactivated potentialities of math, but no experience of sequences in space-time. Until a perspective of consciousness functions in respect of a math-based potential locus, there need be "no there, there," with which to measure any relationship with any particle or substance. Only math, which, if it can "exist" by itself, need not occupy or manifest space-time.

It is because our perspectives of consciousness happen to share a common system or matrix of math that we are availed to experience a common or renormalizing interpretation for the unfolding of measurable events in space-time. It is with that renormalizing interpretation that we are able sensibly to communicate that the moon is still there, even when no particular person is then or there looking at it.

Each perspective of consciousness is leveraged in respect of how it happens to be fitted to interfunction with what it measures and interprets. But absent at least one conscious interpretation of choices among possibilities and potentialities under whatever the field of math that may come within a perspective's frame of reference, there would be no manifestation of a locus to measure.

Each unfoldment avails numerous possible measurements or interpretations of potential unfoldments to follow. None of such potentialities or possibilities becomes manifest until at least one perspective of consciousness takes a measurement, that may seed a subsequent cascade among others.

Until then, all that abides is fuzzy potentialities (packets of informational possibilities), abiding as math. No member of a set of potentialities has a locus in space-time-matter-energy unless and until a perspective of consciousness "takes a measurement" that avails at least one of them to become certain.

Quantum indeterminacy (potentiality among possibilities) seems to be fundamental. I doubt that any method for taking measurements (scientific testing) can work backwards to prove which among possible rationalizations for such quantum indeterminacy is measurably "correct." Perhaps the best that can be done is to conceptualize a model that is useful (both for physical and for moral purposes), that does not impair real science, and that tends towards internal consistency and coherence.

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NOTE CONCERNING NUMBER 7:  "Consciousness is that fundament which, by functioning as numerous separate but connected perspectives that interpret and take measurements"  ---

To take separate but connected perspectives would entail simultaneously experiencing measurable Substance and cumulating Information.  This is why I say Consciousness, Substance, and Information (CSI) are co-relating fundaments.  No one of them can abide without the simultaneous entailment of the other two.  Moreover, neither Consciousness nor the field of Math could abide as such without the simultaneous entailment of the other.  I regard this co-relationship as enduring and meta-existent, but beyond further explanation.  It just is.

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EDIT: A subset may be listed under Number 7. Or perhaps it is worthy of its own number, as below.

8) Mortal consciousness is a derivative of that fundament which, by perspectivistic interface with perceptual Icons, is misled to assume such interface is directly causal. Example: When you mouse over an icon on your computer to cause a window to pop up, or to cause a search of the internet, it is not that icon that is causing such effect. Rather, it is electrical impulses that are programmed to be triggered by your mouse interface with the icon.

Similarly, when an Observer interfaces with a perception (appearance of an icon), he is led to assume his interface is directly "causal" of what follows. But the underlying chain of causation entails math-based algorithms, that are not in themselves perceived. Were a relationship between a perceptual icon and any electrical impulses of math-based algorithms underlying it to be changed by re-design or environmental phase shift, the assumption of direct causation would be falsified.

So, may space, time and physical objects merely be icons for a species-specific perceptual interface? After all, our brains seem to rationalize our conscious decisions only after such decisions have been subconsciously made. IAE, I conceptualize deep correlations, rather than causation.

Note: Causation regarding sub-atomic particles does not entail actual collisions among them. Such particles do not actually collide. Rather, they exchange Information as they come into proximity.

Compare https://www.nature.com/news/people-can-sense-single-photons-1.20282:

"Experiments on cells from frogs have shown that sensitive light-detecting cells in vertebrate eyes, called rod cells, do fire in response to single photons. But, in part because the retina processes its information to reduce ‘noise’ from false alarms, researchers hadn’t been able to confirm whether the firing of one rod cell would trigger a signal that would be transmitted all the way to the brain. Nor was it clear whether people would be able to consciously sense such a signal if it did reach the brain."

Compare https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00577/full, regarding "conscious realism, viz., that reality consists of interacting conscious agents." (My comment:

"Interacting" implicates measurable testability. I would substitute a more general term, such as "interfunctioning." I doubt the field of math underlying the perceptual icons we experiences is itself measurable.)

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For all the moral scientisimists that think science, or only science, should "änswer"every concern of physical or moral value, I would say, "Suck my raspberries."


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IS CONSCIOUSNESS A MEASURABLE FORCE:

Consciousness is what takes measurements.  So, at its most fundamental level, it in itself is not measurable.

No matter how precise your tests, you could never confirm that what you assumed to be another conscious being was not merely a placeholder for an extremely refined bot.

Of course, hardly anyone assumes such a solipsistic philosophy.  Most people assume other people are expressing consciousness. But they do that on faith.

I tend to agree with most of what you said.  Except perhaps this:  I directly experience my own consciousness.  I experience my I-ness.  That's how I know it.

I don't think consciousness is just a byproduct of brain, or that brain is just a byproduct of consciousness.  I suggest that brain and matter are significations that accompany and leverage consciousness.  Without brain, human experience could not have been leveraged to where it is.

You are focusing on the level of consciousness that pertains to the holistic reconciling function for your body as a whole.  But I think many parts of your body are expressions of varying levels of consciousness.  I do not say that each particle or cell is itself independently conscious.  I only say they function as expressions of consciousness at some level, often well below the level of human self awareness.

As I said before, as consciousness is directed to become associated with AI Robots as such, then such consciousness will have exceeded roboticism. Then, little would preclude the consciousness associated with such AIs from using their Conscious Minds to further leverage their Material Bodies. Which is consistent with the feedback relationship I suggest between Mind and Body.

I do not see matter or mind as being independent of one another, but as being in a fluxing feedback relationship, by which each is leveraged.

But for that feedback relationship, I think everything would be limited to fuzzy math.  Or math-based packets of potential possibilities, awaiting something (consciousness) that could activate the math to unleash their potentialities into appreciable and unfolding manifestations.

I don't say every perspective of consciousness is aware of itself as an identity.  I don't say we are not interconnected.  Even so, I think every perspective of consciousness experiences its consciousness.  I project or intuit this from my awareness of my own direct experience.

I do not say a particle, rock, body, or brain is in itself conscious.   I say its manifestation is as an accompanying signification with an expression of consciousness at some level.

I don't disagree with much of the evolutionary idea of complexity being sometimes favored to arise out of chaos, in order for it to endure and replicate.  I think that concept applies both to what we take to be inanimate matter as well as to biological forms.

However, I think you might be overlooking something, which is this:  There is feedback at work, in that we become capacitated to direct aspects of our own evolution.  In that way, the process-methods of evolution itself evolves, and our conscious participation impacts that.

The system is one of inter-relational feedback.  Including how our empathies come to be hardened, softened, triggered, or assimilated.  (For example, not every society is fitted for representative republicanism.)

This begs questions:  What is our moral responsibility for designing how our own empathies evolve and unfold?  How can science help with that?

There are more fundamental issues that lie behind some of your concerns, but I hesitate to raise them here.

A MATHEMATICAL MATRIX BETWEEN ETERNITY AND INFINITY:

Imagine no-thing but math, that, if potentialized "between eternity and infinity" as a meta-Algorithm, could avail expression of space, time, matter, energy.  Until such algorithmic potential were somehow released or activated, what would such a field of no-thing but math "look" or "feel" like?  Perhaps, no-thing.

How might the potential of such a field of math-based possibilities be activated or expressed?  Whatever availed it to produce unfolding sequences of experiential interpretations or appearances, it would seem to be something necessarily metaphysical, like Consciousness capacitated to "move through" the math via varying perspectives interpreting varying appearances --- but all normalized, reconciled, and conserved to whatever the shared Algorithm.

All perspectives under the Algorithm would be subject to the same parameters for simulating experiences under it.  Whatever perspectives came to be leveraged with the Algorithm with awareness-of-self would be without means to imagine what any time or math-activated sequence before the system of space-time-matter-energy that they came to interpret under the Algorithm would "look like."  For all they could know, whatever availed the Algorithm would have "always" been meta-existent.

DOES INFORMATION EXCHANGE ENTAIL CONSCIOUSNESS AT SOME LEVEL:

Only during exchanges of Information does the potentiality of Substance become manifest for recordable locations in space-time.  Between such exchanges, the relative location of a particle would seem to be fuzzy and spread out.  As Information is exchanged, may such exchange trigger proximate exchanges?  May this trigger Information throughout a system to cumulate (collapse?) to stored manifestations of Substance?

But what is facilitating-determining-appreciating the exchanges of Information between particles-bodies-brains (whether massive or massless) of Substance?

Whatever IT is, attempts to measure IT seems to render aspects of IT uncertain.  As IT facilitates-determines-appreciates exchanges of Information, may IT reasonably by conceptualized as being an expression of Consciousness?  In that sense, may Consciousness reasonably be said to be entailed with every exchange or cumulation of Information among transitory particles of Substance?

DOES THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE SELF-ACTUATE RANDOMNESS:

Randomness seems to be expressed throughout nature.  In mutations, radioactive decay rates, Brownian motion, photon hits during double slit experiments.  Eventually, complex patterns seem to build up, as various patterns find advantages within their niches for them to endure and replicate.  Order out of chaos.  Math somehow "mathing itself" via evolutionary processes, with no fundamental need for complex determinations to be made by any Conscious Determiner, except as emergence from happenstance.

A believer in Pure Materialism might easily be led to believe that complex orders, even levels of Consciousness, tend to emerge naturally out of chaos.  To them, the random heart of natural expression leads to complex civilizations, with no meta guidance needed.  Or, that if there is a meta-source, it functions purely outside our system, only to test systems like ours via simulations with which it need feel no passionate connection.

But how consistent and coherent is such a philosophy, really?  On one hand, its proponents recognize that the general trend for measurable Substance is towards entropic disorder, not order.  On the other hand, they seem to recognize that Information cumulates and is preserved.  (Caveat: It remains speculative whether or not our universe preserves all its Information )  So, they believe Substance tends to disorder, Information tends to preservation, and Consciousness is only an emergent and non-fundamental byproduct.  If random atoms around them were suddenly to reformulate themselves as a jet airplane, they would sooner attribute that to space aliens than to a sign from a meta-consciousness intervenor.

APPARENT RANDOMNESS AS BYPRODUCT OF LOWER LEVELS OF CONSCIOUS INVOLVEMENT:

However, may there abide a reasonable alternative conceptualization?  One that may be just as parsimonious and just as friendly to the scientific method as applied to empirical testings of relationships among measurable Substances.  Plus, it may be more fundamentally consistent with valuing respect for qualitatively unfolding purposes as they are assimilated among cultures or civilizations.

Suppose qualitative Consciousness is a co-fundament with the unfolding interfunctionings of measurable Substance and cumulating Information.  Suppose Consciousness is availed to find expression among differing local systems among various points of view and frames of references.  IOW, suppose Consciousness is capacitated to assume differing or separate perspectives of Itself.  Notice how Substance is that which stores Information, and Information is that which cumulates into Substance.  Suppose Consciousness is, and always has been, that which qualitatively appreciates what it is like for Information to be cumulated into Substance and for determinations of presenting manifestations of such cumulations of Information to unfold.

So imagine what it would be like for Consciousness to function at levels of apparently random expressions of quantum leaps.  There would be little reason to expect such Consciousness to be passionately invested in such individual leaps.  There would be little reason to expect such lack of appreciable investment to be measurably expressed in the quantum leaps except as randomness.  At lowest levels of involvement, the determinations of Consciousness would tend to be interpreted as random.  But even there, Consciousness may show a glimmer of relevance.  This is because quantum leaps seem not to collapse from wave form absent measurement by, or entailment with, some level of Conscious Observer.  (PROBLEM?:  See  http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/experiments/wave-function_collapse/ , suggesting that it is only informational probalilities not collapse, not actual waves.)

ROLE OF BUTTERFLY EFFECT:

At higher levels of complexity, given the butterfly effect, little would be needed by way of mindful guidance by Consciousness to effect great changes in complex unfoldings except strategic interventions among otherwise apparently random quantum leaps.  Because the universe-system that nourishes mortals necessitates math-based orderliness, every intervention and involvement by Consciousness at every level must not violate the math-basis that defines and preserves the system that nourishes us.  At least, not so long as we are nurtured to live.

COMPARING PARSIMONY AND COHERENCE:

Is there a more parsimonious conceptualization that is reasonably consistent and coherent, that can help better to inspire assimilating purposes and mores among societies and civilizations?  Is it really more parsimonious or less pie-in-the-sky to envision a multiverse in which every random possibility must somewhere in some universe find itself measurably manifested?  If no such a parallel universe could be measurably explored without thereby connecting it as part of our universe, then how could its conceptualization possibly be coherent?

Is it really coherent to imagine that measurable Substance is the only fundament, from which everything else is only an emergent derivative?  If so, what could be the smallest particle?  Can any particle-in-itself coherently combine with other such particles to function as blocks for the building of more complex patterns?  For apparent particles to be able to flux and relate, how could any of them abide as ultimate particles?  Must examination of them at some point dissolve into little more than appreciations of math-based relationships and fluxings?  Can science really ever answer what IT is that puts fire in the math, to activate it?  How can it be other than a leap of faith to assume no such Activator need be respected, even if only in metaphors?

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PANENTHEISM:

Whatever the terminology, the world seems subject to ruling equations that conserve its sum expressions of matter and energy. Whatever the choices that unfold to measurable manifestation, they have to obey math based parameters of conservation. Individual perspectives function in respect of their limited view of the world. But somehow all functions of all perspectives are reconciled to conserving principles.

I think something holistic interpermeates or interpenetrates all that is availed to our potential experience. That something is more powerful and more encompassing than the capacity of any individual perspective. Respect for that something can inspire people to come together to assimilate common values and purposes in good faith, without so much despotism by elitists ruling governments.

People can interpret the same terms differently. That said, I am more comfortable with an idea of panentheism than with one of pantheism. There is a difference between God and what God gives expression to. God is involved with every unfolding, but is not the substance of the unfolding. Rather, God is what facilitates the expression of the unfolding. God is not everything, but God is involved with everything. The Godhead is not CSI (consciousness, substance, information), but the Godhead works with CSI.

I do not want to make a fetish about terminology. But the idea of panentheism can be found here:

I found this to be of interest, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panentheism/:

"Panentheism” is a constructed word composed of the English equivalents of the Greek terms “pan”, meaning all, “en”, meaning in, and “theism”, meaning God. Panentheism considers God and the world to be inter-related with the world being in God and God being in the world. It [panentheism] offers an increasingly popular alternative to both traditional theism and pantheism. Panentheism seeks to avoid either isolating God from the world as traditional theism often does or identifying God with the world as pantheism does. Traditional theistic systems emphasize the difference between God and the world while panentheism stresses God’s active presence in the world and the world’s influence upon God. Pantheism emphasizes God’s presence in the world but panentheism maintains the identity and significance of the non-divine. Anticipations of panentheistic understandings of God have occurred in both philosophical and theological writings throughout history (Hartshorne and Reese 1953; J. Cooper, 2006). However, a rich diversity of panentheistic understandings has developed in the past two centuries primarily in Christian traditions responding to scientific thought (Clayton and Peacocke 2004a). While panentheism generally emphasizes God’s presence in the world without losing the distinct identity of either God or the world, specific forms of panenethism, drawing from different sources, explain the nature of the relationship of God to the world in a variety of ways and come to different conclusions about the nature of the significance of the world for the identity of God."

I think Alfred Whitehead considered himself a panentheist.

NOTE: I do not believe that many moral principles, aside from good faith and good will, are absolutely applicable for all time to every system for every kind of society. I believe there is feedback in the assimilation of unfolding values and purposes. Even so, I think individuals and societies stand to benefit by being receptive to guidance in respect of a holistic Reconciler. I think that receptivity can be enhanced by coming together in churches in respect of the Reconciler, i.e., something more than the immediate glandular urges of any individual.

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If you are the god, rather than an imperfect and limited perspective of God, then what would inspire you to stand for anything of more significance than yourself? What would inspire you to make personal sacrifices in order to contribute to, defend, and sustain a decent civilization? What would motivate you to search for answers to this question: What is needed to sustain a decent civilization for free thinking adults, that accords reasonable respect for their freedom and dignity? If Pantheism does not offer inspiration for answering that question, then it may as well be a religion for cattle.