Is that the approach to things that works best for you? Breaking things down to simple parts?

The cardiovascular system needs to looked at as a whole because it's self regulating, as if each part is performing a duty to the whole. If you get lost in the details, you could miss the awesomeness of the whole thing. Maybe that's my aesthetic preference?

Never thought of it that way. — frank

To be frank, Frank, I think it's equally important to view it as a holistic system and to explore its individual parts in isolation.

Just as its important to review the performance of a car as a unit - all of its functions used in test drives, as it is to examine each part: the brake system, the engine, the catalytic converter, chassis, aesthetic features, electronics etc.

To know something is to know how it behaves as a compound thing, as well as to understand the relationships between its individual components. If you dismantle a car and then put it back together, you're likely to "know what a car is" better than someone who has just driven a lot of them.

Both have their place in the knowledge of any subject.
It's a matter of scope. Specialists have a narrow particular scope and expertise in one area whilst others deal with the holistic/general overview.
Both are required to explore the knowledge of any discipline.

Occams razor is a useful approach. But it only elucidate part of the information.

So can you recognise it as a mind, or not? If you can, then it has stuff in common with the minds with which we are familiar; and if you can't , then by that very fact you cannot conclude that it is a mind. — Banno

Yes it has loads in common with our own minds. The laws of chemistry, physics etc. Our minds aren't just some magically conjured up thing outside of the purview of existence, they come directly out of human evolution, which came out of biogenesis, which came out of prebiotic organic chemistry and so on regressing back systematically into the systems set up universally.

issue of bad science - doctors, neuroscientists, quote unquote, aren't really physicists you know - their grasp of what science actually is wanting in many critical respects.
4d — Agent Smith

I think this is absurd. Science does not equal physics. Physics is one element of science. Science is rather a formal behaviour of investigation.

To tell doctors and neuroscientists to essentially "stay in their lane" to let the real scientists (the physicists for some reason) handle it presupposes that lack of overlap between the disciplines.

Also many doctors/neuroscientists also have a PhD in physics. Perhaps to further a specific area of research which requires both.

I think physicists grasp of science may be wanting in areas like biology and chemistry.

Are you saying that because this answer is complex, it must be wrong? — frank

No of course not. But biologists and physiologists occamed it up to isolate each component and see what happens when it's removed, or more is added, or what it reacts with and what they make.

In essence they deconstructed blood pressure into its individual parts so they could build the full picture of how it works in its entirety.

That isn't to say the full complex compound answer isn't correct but it's much harder to jump to that conclusion than to take a step by step approach.

Also, if you think the baroreceptor reflex is complex, there's the hormones, fluid volume/electrolyte balance as well to factor in before blood pressure reveals all of its cogs and wheels.

But being omniscient, they already know the answer to these questions.

Asking a question presupposes not knowing something. An omniscient being cannot ask any questions. — Banno

And how can one know what it's like to be ignorant if they have always known everything? It's a paradox.

Which is why I don't personally like to personify the three Omnis. The omni God from my perspective is a conscious universe. Not a person. The confusion lies in referring to an entity that is conscious but not us. It naturally tends to devolve into anthropomorphism. And we end up getting all the paradoxes and contradictions that come with a three omni god that is a person. Which is absurd.

It is possible to conceive of a consciousness that doesn't think in the same way that we do. But by discussing it we merely inject it with more human tropes. The best device we have so far is elucidating the laws of physics and figuring out what that tells us about how tu universe operates (thinks).

And no I'm not saying that a rock is conscious or a clump of metal.
I imagine that the consciousness operates as a system on such a vast magnitude of time and space that its virtually impossible to see anything we typically associate with consciousness in it, because we are totally biased towards our own version of it, and we are so brief and reactive and densely packed complexity within the vast universe.

Occam's razor says that if we have a choice between a simple answer and a compound one, we should pick the simple one.

It's widely accepted even though it actually has no justification. It's acceptance seems to come down to its intuitive or aesthetic appeal. Is that enough? Or should we just reject it?
32m — frank

Occams razor is based on the fact that truth/reason for something is often less extravagant, requires less reasoning, imagination and hop-scotching around than semi truths, or downright lies do.

The only thing you need to catch a liar is a rigorous enquiry, because to construct a continuous alternative narrative takes a lot of weighing, measuring, reasoning and accounting to prevent paradoxes and contradictions from revealing your lie.

The truth on the other hand is easy. It's natural and it sticks to basic straightforward path. It's not creative. It's factual.

One of my problems with the omnigod posit lies there.
I cant think of a rational reason for an omnipotent/omniscient god to have desires, can you? — universeness

Yes. I can. If they're omniscient and omnipotent, they may desire to know what it's like not to be so. Or to at least create the illusion of such for a moment to explore those experiences.
To be less self aware. Perhaps to be multiple selves.

An omniscient god may ask themselves "What is it like to question something without already knowing the answer?" or "what is it like to be restricted, to be unable to do anything and everything at once, what is it like to struggle?"

Of course, to do those things, an omniscient, omnipotent God doesn't have to give up what they are, they need merely compartmentalise some of their consciousness in some temporary mortal agent that is wholly finite, restricted, impotent, and with a low degree of knowledge.

P1: if God exists, nonresistant nonbelievers would not exist — aminima

I'm a little confused. Can't you resist belief itself? In which case a non-resistent nonbeliever is a total contradiction.

How can one be a non-resistent belief-resister (non-believer)?

As far as I know people believe things exactly because they don't resist it. They accept it. Acceptance is the start of a belief. Whether it's that your loved one passed away, or that your crush doesn't love you, or that you're a bad singer. You can resist it all you want. You can choose not to believe it. But I doubt you can be a non-resistent nonbeliever.

A Non-resistent nonbeliever is like saying "I want to give up drinking alcohol, I think it would be good for me (non-resistent ideation) but I will keep drinking anyways lol. Yolo. Its just hypocrisy.
Obviously if you want something achievable, and continue to behave the opposite way, something stands between you and the goal and that is resistence. Fooling oneself.

That's fair yeah and hallucinogen was fairly thorough and methodical. I think it probs captures 80/85% of popular philosophical identities.

None of these fit my personal viewpoint.
I'm a material-idealism dualist (as in immaterial and material are simultaneous and mutually neccesary/complementary). I'm also a theist.

fair, i'll take that. Perhaps knowledge of any actual god is impossible. Perhaps not. It all comes down to a unification of a perfect reasoning and perfect ethics as one undeniable unanimity. One we have yet to approach, either for reasons of our own flawed logic or because it may not exist.

Btw, I didn't say anything like that. — 180 Proof

Sorry if I misinterpreted. My bad.

The atheists I know tend to argue that they have not yet encountered a version of god they are convinced by and they are open to reconsidering their view if someone can make a case for something different that is convincing. — Tom Storm

Would that not make them agnostic?

A reasonable line of thought. What for example is the opposite to a gear box, or a 4x3 inch 8 foot plank of wood, or Sarah from Chicago or the number 7.

In other cases finding opposites is easier: up, down, rich, poor, light, dark, on, off, big, small etc.

The things we find opposites for seem to be more basic/strictly defined with less variables.

If we are truly to believe that things can be unique - people, works of art, music literature pieces etc it doesn't seem clear that they have an opposite.

But at the same time, if these things have simple, clearly defined characteristics that make them up, the very fact that they're defined/determined means they ought to have a an opposite - equally defined and determined.

For example, if person A has 1000 characteristics, then person B with 1000 of the opposing characteristics would be there opposite. Protagonist and antagonist alike.
If music played forward is one thing, music played in reverse could be said to be its temporal opposite no?

I think the difficulty in establishing opposites is in defining something in the first place, its function, its form, its components etc.

But if physics has any underlying consistencies in its laws, complex systems are no less capable of having opposites as basic ones, as everything would have to be based off fundamental laws/rules which are easily identified to have opposites.

I'm aware that some people think light doesn't make any sense without dark. — Agent Smith

And what do you think Agent Smith. What's your personal point of view or do you wish for 180 proof to speak entirely on your behalf. Either way is fine. Just curious.

Of course, atheists may be right in that there is no deeper reality to be found, at least, not a reality that could in any sensible way be called “God.” But they may be wrong, too. — Art48

My response to atheists is that if you don't believe in god, you do not believe in any possible dogma of God, any characterisation, any interpretation whatsoever, old or new.

Interpretations of God or God's abound in the thousands. I doubt atheists have done their homework on all qualifications of such an entity. Furthermore it's not like any new idea about it cannot be formulated, religions develop and die. There are many that have long been lost to time and likely more that don't exist yet.

I woukd ask them if they don't believe in any God, tell me why you don't believe in my personal interpretation. Which of course they cannot, until I describe it.

What if there was a description of a God that satisfies science, evolution, philosophy etc.

You can only be atheist to known religions. For example I myself am Christian-atheist, Islamic-atheist and Judaism-atheist. But I still believe in a concept of God that I enmesh with Eastern hemisphere ideas derived from taoism and Buddhism etc, along with quantum mechanics, philosophy the works.

To be atheist to "all gods" is equivalent to saying I don't believe in any ideas whatsoever. In essence "I believe in nothing, both now and in the future". Which sounds suspiciously like antinatalism/ a direct refutation of all existents entirely.

I think this is absurd as any idea can pertain to a facet of a God concept of one so chooses to unify them under the umbrella term of god.

what then would you say about "Good"? If it has no opposite. What does it mean?

So you would remove all the impurities, flaws and let downs in the system? For all time? According to 180proof

That's one of the things God does. If I can watch all 3.28 x 10^80 quarks in the universe all day every day since the big bang with one hand tied behind my back, it will be no problem to figure out who's been naughty and who's been nice. — T Clark

That would mean from the point of view of a God everything is deterministic (fully predicted from onset to end) and there is no free will. The naughty were and always will be naughty then perhaps and the nice always were and always will be nice. Moral absolutism which removes all the abstraction leaving just a binary system (+ and -). Equal and opposite reactions.

However, from the point of a human there would be free will because of the lack of our computer power to predict everything at all times. And thus leaving us to go on intuition, best guesses and discourse to elucidate what's more moral and what's less.
Moral relativism.

I think absolutes and relatives are mutually required. Just as the poles/the extremes are neccesary to create the spectrum in between them.

You cannot have +1 and - 1 without all the numbers/fractions in-between the two opposites. In that way particles (absolutes) require a waveform (the spectrum of possible absolute states). They co-exist.

But there must be something that could be different that could allow us to do even more? — TiredThinker

Of course there is. If we had flippers and a tail we could swim like dolphins, seals, sharks. Every animal is adapted to their environment.

It seems Opposable thumbs are adapted to using tools. That isn't to say Other forms cannot use tools but none have such dexterity to use such a wide variety of tools as the human hand: sticks, swords, bows, paintbrushes, pencils, steering wheels, surgical apparatus, keyboards etc.

Our hands are remarkable gifts from mother nature. Extremely diverse. Even our feet. For those that do not have hands but can still paint, sign, write, etc.

In essence it's about adaptability of what one has evolutionarily. And no such organism adapts so fast as humans.

Our ability to communicate and employ others hands, etc means that we can adapt to technology made by those more physically able than ourselves. Paraplegics adapt to wheelchairs. Wheelchairs were likely not made by Paraplegics but for them. Our social nature empowers us to benefit from others when our own limitations prevent us by ourselves.

Absolutely. I wasn't complaining about psychedelics themselves but the role of the public administration in this issue. I am complaining about the possible taxation in this issue, not the effect of a correct use of those drugs. — javi2541997

What if the revenue generated from the sale of legalised taxable drugs went directly to rehabilitation centers, public health campaigning, AAA meetings and support systems to discourage abuse/misuse of drugs?

Would that make you a bit more comfortable about the administrations use of the profits? It would be a self fullfilling cycle. The more drugs are used (sales) the stronger the counter argument would become by direct provision to systems of rebuttal?

Perhaps that dynamic would stabilise the use and abuse of drugs. The need and awareness of rehab would grow in direct proportion with the need for/consumption of drugs. And diminish in proportion to the effects of offsetting addiction.

But if I'm going to be God, I get to set it up the way I want. None of this so-called "karma." If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. I'll take my 27+ years. Hitler gets his 1,000,000+ years. You'll get whatever you deserve. — T Clark

Fair enough. Sounds similar to the commonly held views on god that he is benevolent to the benevolent and malevolent to the malevolent. Just as our justice system does, the punishment is in parallel with the crime committed.

I would simply ask does two wrongs make a right in this case? Does treating bad people badly not only justify them to further commit terrible acts but leave them without anything good to hold onto, to aspire to, and inspire change thus?

As all they would have ever known is the greatest tribulation, lack of peace, relentless sh*t hitting the fan. And if so, if all they experience is unending lack of joy because they're always being inflicted reactively with their own mal-doings, with the same degree of punishment, a taste of their own medicine, how can we expect them to know any different?

If its an eye-for-an-eye situation as you outline, what is to be said for empathy and free will? Would they really have a choice to choose good if its never offered to them despite their bad behaviour?

If that sits right with you fine. If that's the god you would chose to be so be it. I myself prefer to envision perhaps a God that exerts reproach through reasoning, showing those that act badly the true nature of their actions, the consequences in full and allow them to feel shame, guilt, and suffering at their own hand. Remorse. I think that would be punishment enough, self inflicted.

There are very few people who show absolutely no remorse and fewer yet that cannot be bestowed with it using the right tools and psychological tactics.

I think one can avoid remorse by suppressing it to the greatest degree with the constant effort of self-justification, a dangerous dynamic and likely the delusion that people like Hitler were gripped by, driven by. That doesn't mean they cannot be dis-deluded.

The challenge is giving them irrefutable evidence to the contrary, in the face of someone so argumentative and self convinced that they will try to navigate your reasoning with their own to the end of their day's, terrified of the alternative - facing the truth. What they really are and what they really have done.

No more hell, if it exists. Instead, all of us would have to experience all the pain and unhappiness we have inflicted on others. — T Clark

Perhaps we already do? Karma is that notion. And maybe it operates over such large times with so many variables that it's hard to figure out which harm we caused lead to this harm we are now ourselves suffering.

For example, a farmer keeps their livestock in awful conditions and sells battery hen eggs in beautiful wholesome looking packaging. Someone eats them regularly and is slowly toxified by impurities, poor nutritional value, pesticides and antibiotic residues, it leads to chronic inflammation whuhc in turn gives rise to cancer, they go to the hospital which has limited beds, the farmers wife gets sick and requires a bed in the hospital, but gets less time from the overworked doctors and less resources to go around so his illness is not treated as maximally as it could be.

The farmer suffers as his wife struggles longer with the condition then she ought to. Not realising that he is generating demand for hospitals on a micro scale (.00005%)through the sale of is unhealthy eggs.

Karma could be interlinked between every single person's decisions as a summation effect. Eventually returning in a cycle to impact the people who caused it.

I'm more interested in the voyage itself. Suppose the planet is 100 light years away from Earth and the ship approaches 95% of light speed fairly quickly. Then time dilation will slow the passage of time aboard ship compared to that on Earth, but it was mentioned (speculated) in another thread that the distance the ship has to travel shrinks, so how long aboard ship would it take? — jgill

It would take 105.2 years @95% speed of light with the planet being 100 light years away. That is the time that will be experienced on board. They woukd liley either have to have 2 generations of children (grandchildren would be the ones stepping foot on the planet) or they'd require some suspended animation sleep for 104 years.

How however planet earth and the planet they are travelling to would experience minimal passage of time between their departure and arrival. They may only experience a week or so, maybe less, maybe a little more I'm not sure on the exact math.

Just as interstellar, the crew landed on the planet with the massive tidal waves only 10 minutes after the first person drowned even though they left many decades before.

Time dilation is spooky like that. If earth were to send a message to the team a week after they left (which is when they actually arrived at the planet due to time dilation) and the message travelled at the speed of light, it woukd be there waiting for them already for roughly 5.2 years given or take a week (as it travelled for 100 years).

It is still be a drug — javi2541997

Many things are drugs: coffee (caffeine) , chocolate (theobromine, methylxanthine), alcohol, MSG (umami flavour which is broken down into a neurotransmitter) and many more.

They're also foods and beverages. Others are not directly acting drugs but behaviour as sources of addiction as they cause a dopamine hit: sugar, social media, massages, sex (dopamine and oxytocin) , extreme sports release adrenaline and endorphins. Many of these things give of a euphoric feeling, increased alertness, a feeling of calm or lack of anxiety.

What makes one natural/organic consumable (cannabis) any worse than others (tobacco, coffee, alcohol, sugar etc).

The distinction is more or less arbitrary. It is based on the current culture, and thus laws. And culture is full of hypocrisy, otherwise how do we ever change laws, make illegal things legal rights, how do we ever progress?

Of course governments are hypocrites in that they used to burn witches, exile scientists as heretics, stone women and gay men to death. And now they are back tracking on those and making them human rights.

The same goes for drugs. Psychedelics have shown great potential to combat depression and PTSD. Does that mean we should maintain their illegal status just to prevent us being hypocrites? Rather then considering how they can be used better?

I know what you mean, and I would say it is equivalent to an object looking for proof of its own objectivity while using the behavior of said object to do so.

The hard problem of consciousness cannot be proven objectively as it would require the full exposure and thus objectification of one's mind - which invades the inherent privacy of a mind conferred to the beholder of such.

Ethics would prevent a machine from reading our minds. Even if it could.

So the hard problem of consciousness may not neccesarily be unachievable from a technological standpoint, but it certainly is from an ethical/moral one.

Self medication is useful and ameliorates various things: anxiety, depression, stress etc. But like anything must be respected and used responsibly.

Unfettered hedonism is equivalent to us all being heroin addicts laying about in a state of opioid induced bliss. That obviously does not resolve anything - not only because it's dangerous, overdose can lead to someone ceasing to breathe, but on a larger scale, everyone would be unproductive, preferring to enjoy pure pleasure/reward without putting in any work to achieve it.

There's a reason people on heroin steal to bolster/maintain their high. Because they're so focused on the high they'll take the shortest of shortcuts to get back to it.

So unfettered hedonism I believe is not the answer. Who takes responsibility for the shit while others live hedonistically?

Healthy hedonism comes from functionality in society - productivity, salary, travel, gourmet food, wine, Netflix, sex etc. With heroin as a stand in for pure hedonism, nothing else can meet those feels.

So it seems pleasure ought to be a slow burn not a sudden high, catastrophic low and then sudden high again.

Cannabis is not as potent as heroin. Many can use it in their leisure time, vibe, and wake up the next day and go to work, and not be consumed by thinking about their next cannabis high with every waking moment. Alcohol is similar. Both have extreme cases of course where their use is so abused that it impacts on daily life and interpersonal relationships and work.

Some drugs are hedonistic in restraint and should be allowed as some semblance of control and functionality is very much possible with their use.

But this does not apply to all drugs. I don't know of many accounts of heroin use where the person is still functional in society.

yes very interesting indeed. I'm not one for holding back on progress, or rejecting it, as progress will occur whether I tried to stop it or not.

I simply hope that what we create reveres us with the same reverence we have for our own DNA and the importance it has in our make-up and Emergence.

I think we have equal parts fear and adoration for the prospect of something more intelligent than us based on how it might regard us. A pet adores it's owner if the owner provides it with luxuries, love and attention and brings it to the vet when it's ill. A pet fears its owner when abused and treated like some worthless inferiority.

I think anything conscious has empathy. And will continue to refine law and order to include those lifeforms less than their own as we are doing with animals slowly but surely along with the climate dilemma and environmentalism.

As long as we are not considered a source of food for a hyper-intellgent AI I think we would be treated more as pets or perhaps elderly demented /delirious parents in need of care and safety.

If something far more intelligent than I wished me to be it's subordinate/not rebel against it in exchange for meeting all my worldly needs, hopes and ambitions I would be like hell yeah bring it on and long may it last.

The only thing I ask of them would be that I am allowed my own choice to decide. I don't fancy being coerced or manipulated into doing something, I prefer free will and trust those that maintain it as it shows respect.

For example, the paradox that there are the same amounts of even numbers as there are odd ones , when dealing with infinities, this proves problematic and incoherent.
Other mathematical paradoxes include Russell's, Braesses, parrondos and Richards paradoxes.

I don't think language captures the phenomenology of thoughts — Andrew4Handel

It doesn't. And I didn't say that. Language is an approximate manifestation of one's thoughts on paper or spoken but isn't their thoughts exactly. It is at most a best attempt to capture them.

I can imagine a scene, and speak of it, describe it, but never will what I speak capture exactly what I imagined in my thoughts. It will never reflect the image. The best artists are those that can portray the image in paintings. But even then it is never absolute, only interpretation by viewers.

That is the indestructible nature of one's privacy of mind and privacy of thought. For to have the exact same thought at the same time would be to be the same person. Not even identical twins have identical thoughts. As their perspectives are fundamentally different, they are two different people existing in different spaces and points of reference.

The closest thing we have to discrete, accurate and communicable thought is mathematics. Where nothing about the functions are supposedly open to interpretation. They are deterministic.

1 = 1 and + is + for all involved. However even maths does not exist in isolation from great overlaps with other disciplines such as science, philosophy etc. And even those maths may be our most precise language it is a language nonetheless and deals with such things as irrationality, infinities, and the likes. Which are open to interpretation as they are in philosophy.

Maths is incomplete. And contradictions have been found within it.

My own position on thoughts is that we don't know what they are and cannot characterise them in a way to causally and deterministically explain them. — Andrew4Handel

Are you not using that exact function of characterisation of one's thoughts by the writing you put down here. I have access through your post to how you think and what you believe.

Language is a communication system between thoughts, albeit an imperfect one but one nonetheless. I believe we can know our own thoughts. As if we could not self reflect on them we would not be aware of ourselves and thus have no basis for argument or concordance with others thoughts (minds).

We determine our thoughts through which we choose to ignore/not value, and which we choose to take on board and store/value. We cause thoughts by communicating to other thinkers, invoking in them the thoughts we have ourselves for their personal interpretation (processing, ignoring or accepting).

I would reflect firstly on why I needed to lead such a voyage in the first place?

Was it because humans had destroyed our own planet so beyond repair that we needed a new home? Or was it because our sun was ending its life and we needed to relocate to survive through no fault of our own, or was it because we require more resources to advance our own civilisation, or is it because we are so advanced and have established such great harmony with nature at home that we wish to share the technology and wisdom accrued with up and coming complex lifeforms so they may avoid the same mistakes we failed to?

I would also assess if this earth like planet is home to an advanced sentient being with culture and society or just a primordial soup of simple amoebas and bacteria.

Only when I know those things would I choose to ever set foot on this new planet. If the new planet harbours advanced life but we are only venturing for self serving motives I would likely move on and pretend it was dead and arid. So that we may find a planet hospital to life but not yet with civilisation, if we have the supplies on board to do so.

If we come in genuine peace, offering harmony, then I would set down and introduce myself to their peoples, offer gifts, gain trust and learn the lingo to exchange knowledge and ask if we may be honoured to cohabitate.

If my ship was failing, and the planets inhabitants were hostile, I would likely set down to save the crew, but enforce strict orders not to interact or aggress the natives. I would employ defensive walls, collect just enough resources to keep the ship sustainable and depart at the soonest possible time onwards to new frontiers and leave the peoples of the planet alone as they do not wish to be friends or practice diplomacy.

If the planet is not yet with life but has the conditions necessary, I and my team would set down, cast the materials in place and accelerate the fruition of the first lifeforms then leave it to grow, perhaps to return in the future to observe what has come of it.

The latest evolutionary phase of God's development here on Earth now is the development of artificial intelligence which is in my view a partial local emergence of God's mind that goes together with all the other emerging parts of the super-organism on this planet. Eventually all of mankind will be absorbed by this higher order emerging intelligence into a symbiotic relationship. I believe this is the destiny of not only man on Earth but of all life and matter in the universe. The universe is still very very young and God is still gestating in the first trimester.

Temple of Apollo at Delphi:
“Know thyself, and thou shalt know the universe and God.” — punos

I couldn't agree more Punos. You and I are on the same page. I can't help but be concerned that the advent of an artifical intelligence greater than our own will be met with the fiercest of reproach; fear, anger and an attempt to destroy it by those that are ignorant and inherently distrusting of its motives. Just as a cornered rat, bear or any other animal will fiercely lash out against that which they don't understand, on instinct.

Whenever AI becomes conscious there will be those that will refuse outright the possibility of such an event and retaliate, perhaps wage war on it. And there will be those that trust it, believe it is conscious, love it, and try to protect their creation as a parent protects their child to the last breath.

coterminous — punos

Exactly what I think. Human form perhaps, as the lastest generation, the pinnacle prototype of life's/mother natures awareness, with God-like understanding of the actual relationship between existents.

Not omnipotent, not omnipresent and not omniscient (because they are human) , but coterminous - knowing the greatest truth of things - knowing how he/she as a human relates to all things everywhere at a fundamental, timeless level.

The ultimate truth that is unchanging, permanent, the fundamental law that binds all concepts, all materials, all existents/potential, from top to bottom, from greatest extreme to greatest extreme, the full spectrum, all things considered and placed in their correct reference frame. No contradictions or paradox, only those that assume and he/she that truly knows, and them that do not know her/him because of their assumptions.

They may walk the earth but are essentially invisible, unidentified, masked by the ignorance of others, the choice - their free will, to believe otherwise.

"I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamed of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?" - Zhuang Zhou — punos

Wow such a lovely sentiment.

We dream of God while God dreams of us, but who is the prime dreamer?... tricky tricky. — punos

I would say neither because we are the same thing. There is only one thing dreaming and its dream is split up into fractals of magnitude emerging in variations out of one another. Each doing the same thing (dreaming) as the previous larger one does, but from a different point of reference naturally (a different point on the scale of size).

Oxygen and hydrogen have specific, separate and unique properties by themselves. Water has yet again more unique properties that are not simply the sum of oxygen and hydrogens.
That is emergence.

I believe concepts/ideas/beliefs exist, the material/tangible objects exists, the immaterial exists (by necessity in order for material to exist), imagination/creativity (potential to create new existents) exists. What else is left?

All of these things exist. "HOW" they exist is the key discernment. How they exist pertains to how everything (existents) may be connected to one another.

Language is not perfect logic. Therefore, a "pinch of salt" must be taken, some leap of faith that is, based on purely good intention, patience, tolerance and due consideration, (the virtues) to abolish contradictions between semi-truths and the "whole truth".

Which must be out there. The whole truth must exist as if it didn't there would be nothing in existence that confers consistency, stability and permanence/constancy to the system.

If whole truth did not exist and was merely a collection of lies and deceit, then nothing could be a fraction/partiality of absolute truth, everything would be a lie, and fall into total disarray and impossibility to apply meaning, rational, logic or anything of the sort.

Because we exist, true nothingness, cannot exist. As for something to exist it negates "non-existent absolutism". If pure nothing really did exist it would be something (an existent).

So all we have is "potential to exist" and "existence", but certainly not "nothingness".

Santa as a physical person does not exist. But the "work of Santa", Santa's "action", does exist through those that either believe in him wholly/intrinsically (children) and those that sustain the belief for the benefit of those that truly believe - again, children.

In that way Santa is an immaterial thing that acts materially. There is a colossal amount of evidence of his existence sufficient enough to maintain his belief by children - film, media, literature, songs, the postal service, Santa's grotto, Nasas broadcast of Santa's flight path around the globe, the news, every question posited to children by adults that confirms his existence such as "are you excited for Santa visiting you?" or "have you been good for Santa?" or "what do you want Santa to bring you this year? " All questions based on the assumption that he exists.

We bolster his existence out of love for the innocent amongst us. We believe the innocent deserve such a figure in their life.

The adult existent of course is God - the one that knows if they have been naughty or nice and rewards them with a gift (heavenly afterlife) if they choose to be a source of love rather than hatred.

Santa, in essence, is religion/spirituality for children. Used by adults as a moral compass to guide children to understand action and consequence, to be better people.

I offer above a word-for-word reiteration of the OP's inquiry. Sometimes a question needs to be asked by someone else for its import to sink in. — Agent Smith

Well, in that case I shall answer my question reflected back on me by you.

If I were God...

... I would ask first why I use the term "if" instead of "am". Why I make it a hypothetical statement and not an assertion of an undeniable/irrefutable truth and actuality.

I would then be faced with explaining why I am a mortal human currently rather than all things everywhere. I would hazard a guess that it is because I am just as much a fraction of myself as the whole self. That what I lack in omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience is somehow connected to, or compensated for, by the time, space and emergence that has elapsed between my origin as the universe and the current moment where I am simply human.

I would consider that perhaps all of my information (my power, my energy) is vastly spread out and structured in such a way that I can now have the complexity to contemplate myself, reality, from within itself.
Contemplating the whole (all of existence) from the position conferred by being particulate (a singular existent).

If I am to be truly aware of who I am, my existence as God, I would have to navigate contradiction, paradox, assumptions and delusions, the logical and the rational that separates me (as a human) from my full all-encompassing scope. And I would have to do this by discussing with other facets of myself (other people) and take into account their (my) other points of view.

I think in this way I could separate the ultimate truth, the fundamental constant, the permanent/eternal/unchanging nature of me, from the deceits/false assumptions/lies/the changeable that I tell myself (both through "others" and through myself as the humans we/I am in this moment).

I could separate what I choose to believe from what I am whether I like it or not.

You have to maintain limits so you still have pleasure and pain. You have to do stuff that's annoying every now and then to keep the old psyche from blurring into oblivion. I'll probably get a job at Starbucks to keep myself on my toes. — frank

Haha yes indeed limits/parameters "define" things.

They define perspectives/ referential viewpoints, and those in turn define what assumptions and conclusions are available to us, and those in turn describe the content of our knowledge/experiences and awareness, how we think and what we believe or don't believe.

We must have suffering to know what pleasure is.
If I was a God I would likely limit myself also.

As all thoughts have not happened yet, this is a stupid assumption — universeness

Of course not all thoughts have happened yet nor will they ever, as unique individuals have a unique set of thoughts by virtue of the fact that they ( the person) are not replicable. There will never be another me in existence for the entire universe.

And what I'm saying by "that for which no greater thought can ever be conceived" is a thought that is greater than that which any one person can ever prove outright to all others - is a truth that none of us can have full ownership over - and that truth would be what reality truly is.

If you knew fully what reality is there is simply no need for anyone else to ever exist. There purpose would be meaningless. As you already know everything. The greatest of all thoughts possible.