The meaning of Life
Today I thought of an idea that made me literally, IRL, squee with excitement. I shall attempt to explain, but it will take some background info first.
I've been re-reading "Quantum Psychology" by Robert Anton Wilson. Now, his philosophy in that book was a melting pot of Existentialism, Phenomenology, Ethnomethodology, Pragmatism, Instrumentalism, Operationalism, The Copenhagen Interpretation, General Semantics, Transactional psychology, and his own ideas. And, as such, his general point was that humans, as conscious beings, cannot experience anything objectively. Humans have perspectives, and perspectives are subjective, and so anything and everything we experience, we experience subjectively. And our tools don't change this, because our tools (computers, cameras, etc) are extensions of ourselves and so are extensions of our perspectives and our subjective reality. This means, of course, that nothing meaningful can be said about objective reality, because regardless of the source of that information, we interpret it subjectively. Our brain creates a model of reality based on the data. Example = Look at your hand right now. What you are actually seeing is not your hand, but your brain's best idea of what your hand looks like with the limited data it has. I say "limited" because our eyes don't see the entire spectrum, and even if they did, even having all the information available about one's hand, the image the brain makes is still just a model. The example Wilson gives in the book to best describe this is that we are all blind kings ruling our kingdom from inside our castles using information given us by our subjects (our senses) who, while not blind, have other limits on their experience of reality.
Or, put another way, the map is NOT the territory.
It then occurred to me as I re-read this today that any being that collects data (either passively, actively, or both) about its reality and interprets that data, making models in its brain (or other similar thinking center) of that reality, is therefore a conscious being. And as such, has perspective and can only experience its subjective reality. Animals and even plants thus can only know their own subjective realities.
I go further. My definition of life is "anything made of energy." And since even matter is made of energy, and since I believe that there are energies permeating all of space that we haven't learned how to detect yet, I believe that everything - rocks, metal, computers, fire - is alive in their own way. And ultimately, everything that exists makes up the body and the mind of God/Source/Universe/The All.
Now if you think about it, even if you don't believe that The All was human-level-or-greater intelligent (after now to be known as HuLoGI) before HuLoGI beings first evolved, you figure it must be by now. But even if it was a lower-level intelligence, it was alive. All living beings collect data about their reality and interpret it in their own way; just because we can't see where they think with doesn't mean they don't think, even if just barely. I am of the school of thought that everything is ultimately made of the same raw material as pure thought.
Anyway, within this worldview I submit that everything in existence is alive, and that all living beings are conscious to some degree or other. And so, being conscious beings, none of them could say anything meaningful about objective reality because they all experience reality subjectively. However, I do not subscribe to the view that there is no objective reality. Obviously there IS an objective reality, because we exist. However, conscious beings simply cannot experience reality objectively, we only experience it subjectively.
Now chew on this: God/The All/Collective Consciousness/Whatever you want to call It is, however you slice it, in some way a conscious being. As such, I submit that as a conscious being it has perspective. Think about it... if God is all knowing and all seeing, that is a perspective. If God is only partially knowing and partially seeing, that is also a perspective. If God somehow managed to be both omniscient and partially-knowing (experiencing both the view of the forest from the sky AND the view from the trees, so to speak), even THAT is a perspective. So there is no escaping the fact that God (or whatever you want to call it) is a conscious being (or several conscious beings) and has a perspective. Being conscious and therefore having a perspective, then even God cannot experience anything objectively. It is impossible, because all conscious beings have a perspective, and a perspective is a subjective view of reality. Go ahead, try to disprove it. I tried disproving it myself, but there's no way out of it.
So, if not even God can say anything meaningful about objective reality, if even God can only speculate on the objective truth, if the truth about Objective Reality is hidden even from God, then I submit that God exists to try to make sense of existence, and that as parts of God (whether God made us or existence made God), that is our function as well. Or, put another way, the meaning of Life is to figure out what the meaning of Life is.
I mean this on several levels. This is a refinement of my previous ideas. I've long known that the meaning of our lives is to make our own meaning, but now I see a greater Truth: that by living our lives and seeking our own answers, we are helping God do the same. I already knew God was living vicariously through us for a number of reasons, but this reason is new to me. And I love this idea so much! By seeking meaning in/giving meaning to our lives, we help God refine its own ideas about the meaning of Life. Though of course, as I have said in this post, I believe knowing anything objectively about objective reality is impossible. We can neither prove nor disprove anything, so long as we are in the trap of consciousness. And since ultimately everything in existence IS conscious to some degree, there is no escaping this fact. Nothing can be known objectively, not even by God.
I can't decide whether to call this philosophy Gnostic Agnosticism or Agnostic Gnosticism or something else.
I've been re-reading "Quantum Psychology" by Robert Anton Wilson. Now, his philosophy in that book was a melting pot of Existentialism, Phenomenology, Ethnomethodology, Pragmatism, Instrumentalism, Operationalism, The Copenhagen Interpretation, General Semantics, Transactional psychology, and his own ideas. And, as such, his general point was that humans, as conscious beings, cannot experience anything objectively. Humans have perspectives, and perspectives are subjective, and so anything and everything we experience, we experience subjectively. And our tools don't change this, because our tools (computers, cameras, etc) are extensions of ourselves and so are extensions of our perspectives and our subjective reality. This means, of course, that nothing meaningful can be said about objective reality, because regardless of the source of that information, we interpret it subjectively. Our brain creates a model of reality based on the data. Example = Look at your hand right now. What you are actually seeing is not your hand, but your brain's best idea of what your hand looks like with the limited data it has. I say "limited" because our eyes don't see the entire spectrum, and even if they did, even having all the information available about one's hand, the image the brain makes is still just a model. The example Wilson gives in the book to best describe this is that we are all blind kings ruling our kingdom from inside our castles using information given us by our subjects (our senses) who, while not blind, have other limits on their experience of reality.
Or, put another way, the map is NOT the territory.
It then occurred to me as I re-read this today that any being that collects data (either passively, actively, or both) about its reality and interprets that data, making models in its brain (or other similar thinking center) of that reality, is therefore a conscious being. And as such, has perspective and can only experience its subjective reality. Animals and even plants thus can only know their own subjective realities.
I go further. My definition of life is "anything made of energy." And since even matter is made of energy, and since I believe that there are energies permeating all of space that we haven't learned how to detect yet, I believe that everything - rocks, metal, computers, fire - is alive in their own way. And ultimately, everything that exists makes up the body and the mind of God/Source/Universe/The All.
Now if you think about it, even if you don't believe that The All was human-level-or-greater intelligent (after now to be known as HuLoGI) before HuLoGI beings first evolved, you figure it must be by now. But even if it was a lower-level intelligence, it was alive. All living beings collect data about their reality and interpret it in their own way; just because we can't see where they think with doesn't mean they don't think, even if just barely. I am of the school of thought that everything is ultimately made of the same raw material as pure thought.
Anyway, within this worldview I submit that everything in existence is alive, and that all living beings are conscious to some degree or other. And so, being conscious beings, none of them could say anything meaningful about objective reality because they all experience reality subjectively. However, I do not subscribe to the view that there is no objective reality. Obviously there IS an objective reality, because we exist. However, conscious beings simply cannot experience reality objectively, we only experience it subjectively.
Now chew on this: God/The All/Collective Consciousness/Whatever you want to call It is, however you slice it, in some way a conscious being. As such, I submit that as a conscious being it has perspective. Think about it... if God is all knowing and all seeing, that is a perspective. If God is only partially knowing and partially seeing, that is also a perspective. If God somehow managed to be both omniscient and partially-knowing (experiencing both the view of the forest from the sky AND the view from the trees, so to speak), even THAT is a perspective. So there is no escaping the fact that God (or whatever you want to call it) is a conscious being (or several conscious beings) and has a perspective. Being conscious and therefore having a perspective, then even God cannot experience anything objectively. It is impossible, because all conscious beings have a perspective, and a perspective is a subjective view of reality. Go ahead, try to disprove it. I tried disproving it myself, but there's no way out of it.
So, if not even God can say anything meaningful about objective reality, if even God can only speculate on the objective truth, if the truth about Objective Reality is hidden even from God, then I submit that God exists to try to make sense of existence, and that as parts of God (whether God made us or existence made God), that is our function as well. Or, put another way, the meaning of Life is to figure out what the meaning of Life is.
I mean this on several levels. This is a refinement of my previous ideas. I've long known that the meaning of our lives is to make our own meaning, but now I see a greater Truth: that by living our lives and seeking our own answers, we are helping God do the same. I already knew God was living vicariously through us for a number of reasons, but this reason is new to me. And I love this idea so much! By seeking meaning in/giving meaning to our lives, we help God refine its own ideas about the meaning of Life. Though of course, as I have said in this post, I believe knowing anything objectively about objective reality is impossible. We can neither prove nor disprove anything, so long as we are in the trap of consciousness. And since ultimately everything in existence IS conscious to some degree, there is no escaping this fact. Nothing can be known objectively, not even by God.
I can't decide whether to call this philosophy Gnostic Agnosticism or Agnostic Gnosticism or something else.