h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>> >>""

>>"They would become *aware* of something they were doing *nonconsciously*? I suggest not."

I think the connection between language and consciousness is sufficiently strong that it isn't easy for language-level reasoning to carry on without the conscious mind being likely to become aware of what was happening.
Until sufficient mulling over *had* been done for someone to have developed a workable conmcept of the nature of a deity, it seems to me that consciousness is likely to play a fairly serious part, and I don't see how someone could develop faith before having some idea waht they were developing faith *in*. Even if they developed a concept of deity which was mysterious, or impossible to visualise, that's still a concept.

Since the emotional/spiritual side of the process may well seem the most personally significant for people, I would suspect that many people don't actually pay a lot of attention to any actual conscious thought that may have preceded it, since that thought wasn't laced with the emotional significance that post-faith thoughts might have been.

>>"Agreed. But what if they made the sort of intuitive sense that might satisfy the nonconscious mind of the suitability of this religion? Would this not meet your requirement?"

*Possibly*, but if someone was seeking answers, it seems likely that they would be aware of that to some extent, even if they hadn't fully analysed it. If presented with possible answers, they would also seem likely to see sufficient significance in them that they would be aware of what they were learning.
A great many things that make intuitive sense seem to have to have to pass through the brain units which seem most strongly connected with consciousness to get to anywhere else.

Note: I don't *equate* conscious with 'rational' (as in 'logical') and nonconscious with 'irrational'.
A very great deal of nonconscious processing is highly rational in *effect*, however such processing actually comes about.
Likewise, there are people who are undoubtedly aware, yet seemingly very far from rational much of the time - with some dreamy individuals it may be that the dull, rational, nonconscious operation of much of their brain is the only thing that keeps them safe in everyday life.

Also, as mentioned before, emotions may be difficult to consciously control, and yet we may be highly aware of our emotions most of the time. Sure, someone may *define* 'conscious' as 'scientific/rational/(deliberate?)', and nonconscious as 'irrational/spiritual/(uncontrolled?)' but that definition itself would seem to be fairly suspect.

Regarding science, I'd suggest that much of it is simply an addition to and/or a selectable alternative to a more basic worldview.
Someone who understands materials science could look at a broken piece of a machine and see where a crack had started from, and how it had progressed up to failure, see such a process in animated form, etc without necessarily a need for conscious *thought*.
A lot of what science says about how the world works can be interpreted visually or possibly 'subvisually' - using the visual/spatial systems of the brain to process information without necessarily being aware of the results in the sense of seeing them in imagination. Mechanics, hydraulics, electronics, computing are essentially pretty similar - just different kinds of machines with a great deal in common. Chemists can visualise atoms, biologists can visualise [parts of?] [groups of] animals, etc.
Personally, I'm fairly confident I do process much science/engineering thought (and much else) visually - sometimes consciously, much as I might scribble diagrams on paper, but often well outside the reach of consciousness, whilst sometimes I have a definite feeling of things vaguely shimmering away somewhere where I don't quite see them. On occasion, I become aware of the existence of an inconsistency or ambiguity in a 'logical' thought process without knowing what the problem actually is beyond a 'does not compute' message filtering up from somewhere below.

I really liked that - guess I must be the wishy-washy type.

Your contention, then, is that this *mulling* must be at least partly conscious. Maybe so. But anything nonconscious is by definition outside (conscious) awareness. Lacking a detailed understanding of the nonconscious, the only way we can define it is to assign to it all of which we are not - as in 'cannot be' - aware.



Oh good, that was a point I'd been avoiding.



That sounds interesting. Can you elaborate, maybe offer an example, or are you as hazy about this as I am?



Then their establishment and maintenance is outside conscious control/awareness, but we are consciously aware of - and affected by - our current emotional state, yes?



Although we know little or nothing of communications between conscious and nonconscious minds, it is clear that such communications take place. We just don't know how, or what 'rules' may apply. The NLP people know that we can nudge our nonconscious toward a problem we need solving, although we can't *instruct* the nonconscious mind to solve it.

I often have problems at work, when I disagree with a particular design change or addition, but I can't express why. Later, when the problems show themselves, I become aware of what I had been afraid of! I am what is generally referred to as in 'intuitive' designer.

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>>"the only way we can define it is to assign to it all of which we are not - as in 'cannot be' - aware."

'Cannot' is a pretty strong word. If one were to try and draw a line around mental processing which we *cannot* be conscious of, there would be a great deal outside the line which still *might* not end up being noticed by consciousness, and possibly some stuff inside the line which some people could learn to be aware of with sufficient training

There is a great deal of *attention* involved in consciousness, and it is possible to do some tasks consciously or otherwise, without those tasks necessarily being performed hugely differently one way or another.
Indeed, the transition may be sufficiently seamless much of the time, that unless we actually start to pay explicit attention to consciousness itself as an object of speculation, we may not have any idea or even much concern exactly what happened in a particular past situation of action or decision-making.

>>"That sounds interesting. Can you elaborate, maybe offer an example, or are you as hazy about this as I am?"

Basically, anything which is taken on board as a set of verbal rules - if later thinking and practice processes them into a form where one can work through the 'rules' without considering them in any conscious way.
I don't deny it is *possible* to absorb information nonverbally, but when it comes to descriptions of how things work, especially when it comes to generalisations and situations which can't be visually demonstrated, words seem likely to be far more powerful than other mediums.

>>"Then their establishment and maintenance is outside conscious control/awareness, but we are consciously aware of - and affected by - our current emotional state, yes?"

I'd consider it as a bit more of a two-way process than that. Thinking about emotions and the information which emotions are based on can have a profound effect on the emotions themselves, as can any number of actions we take as a result of emotions, many of whihc may have a serious conscious component.
If being pedantic, one might argue that the 'we' which is 'affected by our emotional state' isn't so much the conscious 'we' which is *aware* of emotions, but the 'we' that actually *is* the emotions, or at least, the whole unified 'we' that has consciousness as just one part of its makeup.

>>"Although we know little or nothing of communications between conscious and nonconscious minds, it is clear that such communications take place. We just don't know how, or what 'rules' may apply."

That *could* be taken as assuming there was a particular definable split between conscious and unconscious. In reality, it's quite *possible* that much of consciousness is simply a field of awareness that fluctuates in its coverage depending on any number of factors, but leaving much activity going on regardless of whether it was being observed or not.

Regarding your intuition, as a thought-experiment, consider what might happen if you could more easily see what the problem was, but with a brief delay *after* you had become 'intuitively' aware that there was a problem. If you could register an expression of concern as someone explained a change when getting your intuitive error message and be able to see what the problem was quickly enough to explain it to them without obvious delay, to *them* it might seem to them like you'd thought everything through.
Now, imagine if your access to the problem was sufficiently fast for you not to be aware yourself that there was any delay as such.
Might you not honestly think that you *had* worked out the answer consciously simply becuase you had some faster connection to a background process which was doing all the hard work subconsciously.

Is it not possible that there is a whole continuum of possible levels of 'involvement-of-consciousness' in analysing a problem, ranging from something so far in the backgound one is not really aware anything is happening to something where one is explicitly following the thoinking process.
Would you call anything along such a continuum 'nonconscious' in the sense of 'cannot be aware of'?

Does it not make a great deal of practical sense from a biological point of view to have consciousness (as an extra high-level process running on a modified version of a previously working brain layout) actually interfere as little as possible with any perfectly functional processes that the brain was previously capable of (meaning that they can carry on in the absence of conscious attention), yet be able to make some kind of connection with those processes?

P_C:

<'Cannot' is a pretty strong word. [...] There is a great deal of *attention* involved in consciousness...>

Yes! I was referring to things that the conscious mind can't see, no matter how hard it tries, as opposed to things that got by because our attention was elsewhere.



We don't have the necessary terms, do we?



I always remember what a friend of mine, a zooologist, told me about evolution: *every* step in the evolutionary chain must be a viable and successful organism. You can't have non-viable intermediate stages! I assume, as you seem to, that consciousness was grafted on to an existing, functioning, 'system'. Thus it is hardly surprising that certain parts of the nonconscious mind are inaccessible. Perhaps allowing introspection of these parts would compromise their working, or any number of other reasons why a particular 'connection' was impractical (given the design of the 'consciousness-less' organism).

Of course we've moved a long way from considering whether religion is 'targetted' at the nonconscious mind, the original topic of this sub-thread. I suppose it was inevitable, given our pretty limited understanding of what the nonconscious mind is, and what it does. I find it fascinating though.

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Perhaps the only reason there are some parts of the mind which are considered inaccessible is that we haven't yet constructed the connections from the conscious mind to these parts. In twenty thousand years, we might have done.

PC, I didn't forget...

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That doesn't seem like much of a refutation of God. It's just the usual bringing together of inconsistencies in the text of the Bible to 'prove' it's inconsistent (which is pretty obvious to anyone with more than one brain cell anyway).

Textual incoherence aside (), I think the 'standard' triple-O God is more or less invulnerable to attack. Because He/She/It is in control not only of the universe, but of the rules that bind it. There's nothing such a being cannot do, except maybe providing a caring socialist government for the UK, with a soothsayer as Prime Minister. But now I'm fantasising.

Pattern-chaser

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I suppose it depends what one means by 'attack'. There may by definition be nothing such a hypothetical being *cannot* do, but there are also certainly things which, if one actually exists, it *chooses* to do or not to do.

There are at least legitimate questions of the form:
"Why would a triple-O god allow X, Y or Z to happen?"
or
"Why would a solitary triple-O god wish to be as misunderstood or even fought over as it would appear to be?"

Certainly, someone could answer "I don't know", or "It's god's mysterious will", or "It's not our place to ask", or "Anything that goes wrong is down to human frailties or some anti-god", but that would at least partially undermine one of the philosophical reasons for postulating a god in the first place - to try and explain how/why things are as they are.

Irrespective of theological opinions about divine mysteries, we could presumably get some idea of the likely *priorities* of a postulated triple-O being from what it chooses to do or not to do.

For example, notwithstanding the cynical manipulation of religion as a political tool in many conflicts, if a deity actually wished to be worshipped by all people living peacefully, you'd think it could have made its wishes sufficiently well-known from time to time.

Fair points, and more significant than whether or not the existence of God can be (dis)proved!

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At last a decent topic....

By definition the existence of a triple-O creator deity denies freewill. Therefore the reason we have wars is because the deity wants wars. The reason we have suffering is because the deity wills there to be suffering etc.

The problem I find with the concept of a triple-O deity is this. If that deity is triple-O why does he/she/it need to threaten people with eternal damnation in order to ensure their obedient worship?

Either that deity is one perverse maniac, or a charlatan who just poses as triple-O.

Neither answer actually encourages me to give my obedience/worship to such as that.

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\

Nope. Just the usual bringing together of inconsistencies within the text of the official RCC definition. The bible is simply too incoherent to bother with.

The RCC triple-O is invulnerable to attack, as you put it, only if one can also believe in square circles.
I'm not sure about the definition of the 'standard' variety

The rules, as you say, are not those that bind the thing, but are the rules of logic and reason, without which there can be no discourse, and therefore no proof.

It boils down to this: No matter how one slices it, the RCC triple-O definition is a self-contradictory description of an omnipotent person.

Unless of course you can prove square=circle. And even the jesuits can't pull that one off

Hi Tal!

<...the rules of logic and reason, without which there can be no discourse, and therefore no proof.>

That's a different discussion altogter, albeit one I enjoy.



Self-contradictory in what way? When you define a being that is able to do anything at all, without limit, then that thing could (for example) create the universe we believe we live in. [I admit that defining such a being really suspends all normally-applying rules and laws. ]

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A triple-O god is easily disproven. All you need to do is go to the Bible and find a single incident which clearly demonstrates a failure of one of the Os.

Just off the top of my head, we have God looking for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. If he doesn't know where they are, he is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. (Gen 3:8-9)

And another, we have God personally leading a battle from a chariot, and being forced to retreat. If God is not more powerful than iron weapons, he is not omnipotent. (Judges 1:19)

That covers all three. He is none of the above.

Here's a good photographic retelling of God leading his men into battle in Judges 1:19. http://www.thebricktestament.com/judges/index.html#iron_chariots

I accept the inconsistencies in the Bible, but let's not forget I forsook the Holy Roman Church some thirty-five years ago. So I can't reasonably speak for them. Nevertheless, the God I was taught of was omnipotent, and minor inconsistencies such as you note would have been dismissed. Dogmatic as they were, the Catholics who educated me were not biblical literalists.

Pattern-chaser

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>>"A triple-O god is easily disproven. All you need to do is go to the Bible and find a single incident which clearly demonstrates a failure of one of the Os...."

Well, technically, that is the failure of one alleged triple-O god, assuming the God in the Bible is reckoned to be bothered about being accurately represented in it.
Admittedly, not exactly good for simultaneous beleivers in an accurate Bible, a triple-O deity and logic, but not a generic proof against the possibility of any other triple-O deity.

The RCC definition of god's omnipotence is explicit, and unequivocal.

Their definition of 'person' is less so, simply because they do not explicitly define what a person is.

However, the 'god' definition does, in fact, state that god is a person who posesses 'free will', which is defined elsewhere, and is commonly understood, as the 'ability to make choices', 'choose from a range of possibilities', or 'select alternatives' etc..

The definition states that god is a person (free will)

The definition also states the god is omniscient (knows all things)

Therefore god, according to the RCC, is an omnipotent person.

But knowing all things precludes making decisions. It also obviates learning new stuff, but perhaps that's another topic.

There also may be other requirements for 'personhood', but the one defining characteristic, at least for god - according to the RCC definition -- is 'free will'

Knowing all things and free will are mutually exclusive capabilities, no?

If this is not the case, please be so kind as to reconcile them

Hi Tal!



Maybe? If we think of omniscience as extending throughout space *and* time, this might imply perfect (and fixed) knowledge of one's own future actions. I assume this is what you're getting at?

The RC God I was brought up with is outside time. This might give a rather different perspective. I can speculate that omniscience *might* give such a being knowledge of the future if He takes no action, and different knowledge based on any action He might take. Just as you or I might take some action within a given (i.e. limited) spatial volume, so a deity might act at a particular time (or throughout time, but that complicates matters! ). So a divine action could change (what we perceive as) the past, and the future too.

If this was so, then omniscience and 'free will' would not contradict one another, would they?

Pattern-chaser

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<>

Well, obviously no argument is going to do any good if you choose to summarily ignore it.