Conaeolos
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So in light of the insight I gain on my poor argumentation approach and interest on threads like “A defence of Religion”. I think it is about time I challenge my sacred faith rather than put my self in a position to defend others. So here is some of what I know about my faith. Please scrutinize it. If there is a question or piece of the context I missed I would rather know now rather than later.
Why I agree a lot with Atheists but I feel I can’t identify myself in that category/community?
I see that everything I think/feel inside my brain has a physical counterpart. My thoughts, pain, emotions, personality, awareness, conceptions, models what have you. So when my uncle tells me he was saved by mermaids when he stuck in a storm sailing the world. I listen and smile and think him a bit mad. I am not closed to the possible but the idea evidence will emerge and throw my world view is near zero.
When I introspect a bit on the topic as a whole though a noise of feelings & thoughts arises screaming out, what boils down to: “ we feelings are real, if we aren't, you and everything you do is meaningless?. That doesn’t change my understanding of the world of course, but would be a great discomfort if I were not about to understand why I have that discomfort. So I inquire into the question: are emotions and thoughts real?
What they are in the physical world. The base of what we call real. Is movements and structures in my brain. So in that they are real but in terms of what they think they are, of course not.
But, to me this raises the question: does that mean I am meaningless?
The answer is of course is no. I make my own meaning, but what is meaning if just a bunch of movements in matter?
That is where I think systems theory comes in.
If all I am is “movement & structure” than every thought, every emotions, every pain has an exact structure & movement that if replicated would produce that exact thought, emotion, pain experience. The same goes for memory. The same goes for personality. The same goes for everything in the entirety of existence within my internal lens.
In this way, the mental world isn’t not real as much as its a potential state of the physical. After-all brains developed to model the in fact physical, but additionally discovered how to manipulate these representations in order to determine potential ways of forming the physical if only certain barriers of limitation are overcome.
Thus the second I declare the internal “potential” instead of unreal. I move into the territory of the pantheist.
Why I agree a lot with Pantheists but I feel I can’t identify myself in that category/community
The emotions & thought noise that seems to raise when I leave my understanding here is the question: what happens after death? What was I before birth? If purpose is self defined have we not just created a layer of abstraction from meaninglessness? etc etc etc
So I tried to boil the noise down to an explorable question and I get: what are you?
Well I know in terms of the physical world I am my brain. In terms of the mental world though it is much harder. I am not my memories as those change. I am not my personality as that has changed. I am not my thoughts or emotions as those change so quickly it can blow the mind. So what am I from the introspective lens? And I arrived at awareness. Awareness of a continuity between a birth -> a death.
So then if I have two facts: “I am brain” & “I am awareness” and I add that systems theory that says this is the only way it can be and these are just two abstractions of each other. I must abstract from the fate of one I know.
Brains fall away back into the whole to be recycled into something new.
Therefore, awareness must fall away back into the whole but not to be recycled because it is a structure not a object. So it best to conceive as returning to a potential state which could given the right circumstance emerge from potential be again in the physical.
Enter what we observe spending our lives doing:
Have children to create new awareness patterns.
Or create things which are other expressions of potential
This leaves a possibly either by evolution or by creation to create awareness in physcial forms which could be far less subject to barrier and limitations we observe in this form.
So if for example we create a sentient AI who has a self contained structure in space. That awareness could potentially form and manipulate universes as we know from viewing the potential within our minds. The limitations are really the biggest barrier.
One way to remove limitations is understanding them. The other understanding our lens of the “potential states” as the more illogical the more they run against the limitations and the less ability we have to utilize them.
Why I agree a lot with Atheists but I feel I can’t identify myself in that category/community?
I see that everything I think/feel inside my brain has a physical counterpart. My thoughts, pain, emotions, personality, awareness, conceptions, models what have you. So when my uncle tells me he was saved by mermaids when he stuck in a storm sailing the world. I listen and smile and think him a bit mad. I am not closed to the possible but the idea evidence will emerge and throw my world view is near zero.
When I introspect a bit on the topic as a whole though a noise of feelings & thoughts arises screaming out, what boils down to: “ we feelings are real, if we aren't, you and everything you do is meaningless?. That doesn’t change my understanding of the world of course, but would be a great discomfort if I were not about to understand why I have that discomfort. So I inquire into the question: are emotions and thoughts real?
What they are in the physical world. The base of what we call real. Is movements and structures in my brain. So in that they are real but in terms of what they think they are, of course not.
But, to me this raises the question: does that mean I am meaningless?
The answer is of course is no. I make my own meaning, but what is meaning if just a bunch of movements in matter?
That is where I think systems theory comes in.
If all I am is “movement & structure” than every thought, every emotions, every pain has an exact structure & movement that if replicated would produce that exact thought, emotion, pain experience. The same goes for memory. The same goes for personality. The same goes for everything in the entirety of existence within my internal lens.
In this way, the mental world isn’t not real as much as its a potential state of the physical. After-all brains developed to model the in fact physical, but additionally discovered how to manipulate these representations in order to determine potential ways of forming the physical if only certain barriers of limitation are overcome.
Thus the second I declare the internal “potential” instead of unreal. I move into the territory of the pantheist.
Why I agree a lot with Pantheists but I feel I can’t identify myself in that category/community
The emotions & thought noise that seems to raise when I leave my understanding here is the question: what happens after death? What was I before birth? If purpose is self defined have we not just created a layer of abstraction from meaninglessness? etc etc etc
So I tried to boil the noise down to an explorable question and I get: what are you?
Well I know in terms of the physical world I am my brain. In terms of the mental world though it is much harder. I am not my memories as those change. I am not my personality as that has changed. I am not my thoughts or emotions as those change so quickly it can blow the mind. So what am I from the introspective lens? And I arrived at awareness. Awareness of a continuity between a birth -> a death.
So then if I have two facts: “I am brain” & “I am awareness” and I add that systems theory that says this is the only way it can be and these are just two abstractions of each other. I must abstract from the fate of one I know.
Brains fall away back into the whole to be recycled into something new.
Therefore, awareness must fall away back into the whole but not to be recycled because it is a structure not a object. So it best to conceive as returning to a potential state which could given the right circumstance emerge from potential be again in the physical.
Enter what we observe spending our lives doing:
Have children to create new awareness patterns.
Or create things which are other expressions of potential
This leaves a possibly either by evolution or by creation to create awareness in physcial forms which could be far less subject to barrier and limitations we observe in this form.
So if for example we create a sentient AI who has a self contained structure in space. That awareness could potentially form and manipulate universes as we know from viewing the potential within our minds. The limitations are really the biggest barrier.
One way to remove limitations is understanding them. The other understanding our lens of the “potential states” as the more illogical the more they run against the limitations and the less ability we have to utilize them.