Regression to something (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, September 12, 2011, 10:35 (4800 days ago) @ David Turell

BBELLA: If consciousness is energy like everything else that IS is energy, and since nothing stays the same but change, I would think that everything that "IS" is in a constant state of evolution/change, including that which we call God and that which we call consciousness. So, even if we knew something of where we came from, as the scriptures say, there is no telling what we will become.-DHW: Agreed. If there is a God, I would find it/her/him easier to understand in terms of deism (not intervening) and process theology as explained to us by Frank ... i.e. learning all the time. I can picture God experimenting with life, jettisoning some forms and improving others, just as we humans do with our own designs. Omniscience and omnipotence wouldn't give him much fun. So just as there is no telling what we will become, there is no telling what God will become. -DAVID: The above discussion demonstrates how God is always presented against a background of religious just-so stories. Evolutionary theory has its own background of ephemeral just-so stories. Human nature seems to require that we invent these stories when presented with phenomena that we do not understand. In medicine it is giving a poorly understood process a name. Then we all feel better. The ancients had Zeus, Thor, Athena,etc. Native American Indians were surprising more advanced for a stone-age civilization: they had monotheism in the Great Spirit. 
I'm making the point I always make: when presented with the unknowable, in your thought patterns try and make a fresh start. Ignore the just-so stories and start with what we can accept as factual material to build your veltanschauung (worldview).-I'm blowed if I can see any just-so stories in my discussion with BBella. You yourself actually believe in the just-so story of an eternal UI that came from nowhere and created the universe and life from nothing. Perhaps this makes you "feel better". I have no such belief, but when I consider the factual material (the mechanisms of the universe and life, the history of humankind) I conclude that IF there is a UI, the concept that fits in best is that of a scientist experimenting with life forms, but not intervening in human affairs. I wouldn't call this a Weltanschauung. Simply a speculative hypothesis.