I continue to grapple with understanding the perspective of the many smart people who are attempting to understand consciousness, the universe, and our place in the universe. I even am having difficulty framing my doubts. Philosophers and scientists have come to grips with the how scientifically yet the why continues to escape them. I believe that the reason why is so difficult to grasp is because we humans consider ourselves if not the center of the universe at least the center of existence. We insist on knowing why we are and how and why we know that we want to know. Hubristic! We and our Earth are so ridiculously infinitesimal within the universe/s that our existence is meaningless to any but ourselves. Most atheist arguments for there not being an Omni-God involve the absence of morality that would cause, even allow, all the pain and suffering humans endure. Why even allow individual life to end? The question remains, how could it? I was thinking that maybe it doesn't have the same definition of morality as we, the majority, do. Maybe its entire value system is different. It's possible that what I think of as a universally agreed-upon value system is a thought in error. For example, the Hamas terrorists that killed, raped, and tortured so many Israelis in October surely thought that those actions pleased their God. I think they are wrong and believe that they should be killed or executed should they have been in any way participants in that tragic event. So could a God have a value set that agreed with the terrorist? What God would allow such behavior unless it also believed the terrorists were doing a good?
There are serious(?) theories that the universe is a computer simulation. Take for a moment that it is and ponder the following news article (https://thenextweb.com/news/why-virtual-rape-is-hard-prosecuted): "Britain’s first police investigation into a “virtual rape” has little chance of leading to a prosecution, according to legal experts. The victim of the alleged assault was a girl aged under 16. Accord)ing to a report this week in the Mail Online, the child was wearing a VR headset and playing a video game when a group of adult men “sexually attacked” her avatar. Although there was no physical injury, officers said she suffered real physical and emotional trauma. They added that such attacks are rife on metaverse platforms — but none have resulted in prosecution in the UK."
Why would the universe need to be so big, infinitely big, and our planet so insignificantly small if its purpose is to house humans? And why bring us into the picture so late in the game? Thirteen-plus billion years (maybe much longer) is a long time to wait before beginning a complicated evolutionary process that would eventually end up being you and me. And why create us anyway?
From Philip Goff again:
"...the universe as a whole is a kind of Aristotelian organism: it exists, in part, to fulfil a good purpose, despite the fact that nobody created it for that purpose. Perhaps the universe is like a plant that, in the fullness of time and with a bit of luck, will grow and blossom into something beautiful. Teleological laws are the most parsimonious accounts of cosmic purpose. They simply accept the brute existence of cosmic purpose without feeling the need to postulate any deeper explanation of it. On the other hand, the deeper explanation of cosmic purpose provided by non-standard designer hypotheses is an attractive feature. We arguably have a tie here, with one theory ahead in terms of parsimony, the other ahead in terms of explanatory depth. The ideal would be to find a way of securing the extra explanatory depth but with minimal cost in terms of postulating extra entities."
So, as I understand it, in Goff's teleological cosmo-panpsychism, the universe is of consciousness (or is it itself consciousness?) and is its own creator. He allows "teleological" and proposes the purpose to be value (and life?) to resolve the fine-tuning issue. To allow for all the bad things he proposes a limited universe far short of an omni-God. Intuitively I find it difficult to agree that ALL is consciousness but I do find the thought that the universe is the creator that always was and always will be. But the creator would ot
WHY DOES IT CARE? Is a limited universe merely a limited God.
Thoughts about the afterlife: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death | Aeon Essays Therein is some argument for the goal of humanity is to be good and that might not be individually attainable with only one life.
COMMENT: If we are the only inhabitants of the univeerse, why create a whole universe just to create life on one super-small planet? Why would God have placed humanity on earth to endure an unsatisfactorily short life then kill him?
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