Freedom, Mind & The Universe

I am committed to the simple idea that mind is not some fluke in the world. That our feeling, our experiencing, our knowing is part of something that exists throughout. There is a scientific prejudice that assumes that only those things with brains or neurological systems are really capable of thought or experience. I reject that notions. Just look at the complex behaviors of slime molds, or of non-living complex systems.

Really, the entire neuroscientific prejudice is based on a basic logical mistake. One has to assume that the object of study has a mind before one can see what constitutes said mind. But really, I don't KNOW that anyone other than myself has conscious experience, or really thinks at all. This is called the problem of other minds, and it deals with the limit of what is epistemically possible. The only mind I have access to is my own. All other attributions of thought or experiencing to other beings is based on a very weak argument from analogy. Other beings act like I do, so I assume they have minds like I do. The problem with this is that the proposition that other beings simply act as I do without mind fits the facts just as well as the proposition that other beings have mind as I do. And bonus, one isn't multiplying entities unnecessarily.

Of course the proposition that other people don't really have minds or have conscious experience is insane. But it is hard to explain WHY it is insane. In philosophy this is called 'the problem of other minds', but most neuroscientifically minded people seem to be all but oblivious to it. The truth of the matter is that all attribution of consciousness is projective. We project mind onto other beings. There is no way to step outside of that projection process to see what is 'really there' independent of it. If natural complex systems exhibit behaviors that we naturally attribute to intelligence or consciousness, then I don' t see what reason there is not to trust that natural attribution, unless a very strong reason not to is given. Perhaps these systems' behavior is completely explicable in deterministic terms. So what? There are some who suggest human behavior is in-principle explicable in those same terms.

This is all philosophy, what the heck does it have to do with theology? Much, in my view. For me, the soul isn't something that is found within one's body, like a hand in a glove. It is relational, and is only really discovered in one's relationship with the whole of reality. I lose myself to find my 'self'. But if I find my soul through my commitment to reality, to being, to the whole of things, then doesn't that mean that the whole of things is my soul, in some sense at least? I'm an experientialist. I think the depth of experience is found within the world itself. It is not 'generated' by my brain, it is out there waiting for my brain to access it. All things probably share in it to some degree or another, and complexity of behavior and introspection are, by my lights, simply a more advanced form of this 'participation'.

Whitehead:
"There is a quality of life which lies always beyond the mere fact of life; and when we include the quality in the fact, there is still omitted the quality of the quality. It is not true that the finer quality is the direct associate of obvious happiness or obvious pleasure. Religion is the direct apprehension that, beyond such happiness and such pleasure, there remains the function of what is actual and passing, that it contributes its quality as an immortal fact to the order which informs the world."

and

"God is that function in the world by reason of which our purposes are direct to ends which in our own consciousness are impartial as to our own interests. he is that element in life in virtue of which judgement stretches beyond facts of existence to values of existence. He is that element in virtue of which our purposes extend beyond values for ourselves to values for others. He is that element in virtue of which the attainment of such a value for others transforms itself into value for ourselves.

He is the binding element in the world. The consciousness which is individual in us, is universal in him: the love which is partial in us is all-embracing in him. Apart from him there could be no world, because there could be no adjustment of individuality. His purpose is always embodied in the particular ideals relevant to the actual state of the world. Thus all attainment is immortal in that it fashions the actual ideals which are God in the world as it is now. Every act leaves the world with a deeper or a fainter impress of God. He then passes into his next relation to the world with enlarged, or diminished, presentation of ideal values.

He is not the world, but the valuation of the world. In abstraction from the course of events, this valuation is a necessary metaphysical function. Apart from it, there could be no definite determination of limitation required for attainment. But in the actual world, He confronts what is actual in it with what is possible for it. Thus He solves all determinations."

Just as we project mind onto individual beings, we project mind onto Being (or rather Becoming) Itself. Reality is treated as a person. We all do it, all the time. My radical doctrine is that this experience, this projective tendency isn't something to be run away from just because it is projective. The truth is that we have no way of being certain that all our projections of mind and experiencing are not false. In the end my theology is based on the simple philosophical principle of Charles Pierce: "never doubt in your philosophy what you sincerely believe in your heart."