Subjectivity

 A psychophysical organism is s conscious material object.

Therefore, it is both a subject and an object of consciousness.

Consciousness generates the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity.

Rising temperature is objective.

Feeling hotter is subjective.

Consciousness is a property of a psychophysical organism.

Therefore, it is not an independent substance.

"Soul" is objectified subjectivity.

The Universe And Consciousness

The universe becomes conscious of itself through psychophysical organisms.

Every conscious organism is both an individual self and the universal self.

Human beings usually identify with the organism or with a self-image but not with the universe.

Thus, the universe becomes conscious of itself but does not realize itself.

Concrete Reality

We know other people by seeing and hearing them.

We know ourselves by being ourselves.

I am not another person.

My objective knowledge of him is not his subjective knowledge of himself.

Concrete reality is every aspect of existence.

An abstraction is one or more aspects considered separately.

Empirically observable objective reality abstracts from the totality.

The totality also includes subjectivity.

Objectivity is ontologically primary.

Subjectivity is epistemologically primary.

Objectivity is an inter-subjective consensus.

Its primacy is deduced.

We know someone else as he appears to us, never as he is to himself.

This is a permanent "mind-body problem."

We see both the cause and the effect in a father-son relationship but not in a brain-mind relationship.

Neuronic interactions and consciousness are causally related properties of a single organism.

Matter And Consciousness

Philosophically, "matter" is whatever pre-existed consciousness and exists independently of it.

It is not mechanically interacting particles with only quantifiable properties like mass and volume.

It is energy changing dynamically and qualitatively.

In fact, quantitative change becomes qualitative.

Cause and effect can be two objects or two properties of one object.

Molecular motion causes fluidity.

Molecular cohesion causes solidity.

Neurally processed organismic sensitivity causes consciousness.

Neurons fire electrically and interact electrochemically.

Properties of matter include motion, fluidity, cohesion, solidity, sensitivity, electricity, electrochemistry and consciousness.

Consciousness is a qualitatively unique material property, not an immaterial substance.

Matter has become conscious.

The One

The single reality is neither homogeneous nor static but internally differentiated and dynamic.

Energised complex molecules changed randomly until one became self-replicating.

Self-replication and natural selection generated multi-cellular organisms.

Naturally selected organismic sensitivity to environmental alterations quantitatively increased until it was qualitatively transformed into conscious sensation.

Increased brain complexity somehow transformed bodily sensations into perceptions of discrete objects.

The One becomes conscious of Itself by appearing to Itself as other and many, then realises its oneness.

The One is present in every particle but conscious only in organisms with central nervous systems.

It knows itself as animals and human beings but not in any pre- or trans-cosmic state.

Its internal relationships are spatiotemporal and physical or psychophysical.

Gods are personified natural and social forces.

"God" is unified personified external forces.

Science depersonifies reality.

Science explains objective events as instances of laws.

It explains less general laws as instances of more general laws.

It cannot explain subjective phenomena or the most general laws.

Objectivity is an inter-subjective consensus.

Subjectivity is the unique experience of each individual conscious organism.

A sensory input causes a neural interaction which causes a sensation.

Scientists observe and describe objective inputs and interactions but not subjective sensations.

We experience consciousness and observe conscious, including linguistic, behaviour but do not observe consciousness.

Numinous experience is of an awesome presence.

Mystical experience is of inner oneness.

Visionary experience is of projected visions.

Experiences can be interpreted theistically or non-theistically.

Theists personify ultimate reality.

Persons are self-conscious individuals.

Self is recognized as such only by contrast with other.

Therefore, the One incorporates all persons but is not Itself a person.

It is "God" as the object of numinous and mystical experience but not as a transcendent person.

The One imagines that it is us and we imagine the gods.

They are in us and we are in It.

All is one.

Three Indian Philosophical Systems

Vedanta: either monotheist or idealist monist meditation.

Yoga: soul pluralist theory and the practice of "control of thoughts."

Buddhism: anatta ("no soul") and "emptiness" teachings and meditation.

I place these systems in reverse order in terms of their approximation to truth.

The First Cause Argument

The Argument

(1) Every event is caused.

(2) An infinite regress is impossible.

(3) Therefore, there was a first cause, which everyone calls God.

Comments

(1) and (2) need to be proved.

There are uncaused events in quantum mechanics.

If every event is caused by an earlier event, then an infinite regress is not only possible but actual and there can have been no first cause which, in any case, would be a past event, not an eternal person.