We have a much wider milieu now in which our awareness/understanding of reality can unfold. Descartes was a genius of immense proportions, but he lived in a universe barely beginning to be comprehended in a Newtonian-mechanical sense. Up until 1920 the best minds in the world thought our own galaxy was the extent of the universe. Consciousness is unfolding at an unprecedented rated.

Are our consciosnesses infinite or finite? — Gregory

Why not both? There is no reason to suspect that existence is not constitutionally paradoxical, and I sometimes entertain the idea that wherever the infinite and finite intersect, there you will find a human being immersed in the existence medium.

Maybe we can understand objects because we are so far above them? — Gregory

Objective knowledge amounts to no more than an approximation of the truth since it is always partially created and partially learned. For every object that is known, the human understanding interposes a veil or lense over existence, so that no matter how infinitismal, there remains a human component contaminating all understanding. I might venture to say that in learning (learning as used in the present sense), one is in a direct relation to the object, whereas in creating (creating as used in the present sense) one stands apart from the object, an indirect relation, and may put oneself above it as it were.

We have a much wider milieu now in which our awareness/understanding of reality can unfold. — Pantagruel

Very true

Consciousness is unfolding at an unprecedented rated. — Pantagruel

And yet people are stupider than ever. Go figure.

I sometimes entertain the idea that wherever the infinite and finite intersect, there you will find a human being immersed in the existence medium. — Merkwurdichliebe

I like that. We seem to be born into the middle of a story and wonder "who did I get in the middle without understanding the beginning and end?". A phenomenologist would say "where else is there to be!"

Tapas in Hindu religion is thought of as a physical manifestation of Brahma/Atman within the body (especially the stomach). It is called "sexual warm" or "the warm of birth" sometimes. This is a radically different idea than western theism. For many Indians, the universe generates itself through a auto-sexual birthing act.

Descartes idea of God was different: you could never become God because the chasm between the finite and the perfectly infinite can never be bridged. Now Descartes was not a theologian. For believing Christians, they follow St Peter in the Bible in saying we "partake of divine nature" in heaven. The Church Fathers called it deification. There is still a numerical difference between creator and creature though, and the relation of cause and effect remains.

However Hindus (whom I have been reading about the past couple days) say what Hegel (and Protagoras) said: our souls are all reality. Hegel got his notion of soul from Aristotle, but exploded it into the infinite through his own reasoning and comes up close to Hinduism on this.

Descartes (back to him) thought we don't get a vague idea of God from thinking, but we have naturally a very specific idea, "clear and distinct", within our souls about this infinite Being. Maybe material objects
didn't exist, he said, but this being that has all greatness must exist because this idea within him of God can't stand alone. It can only come from God and it can only point, in it's internal nature, to God. This idea of his that this idea of perfect being cannot be an idea that has nothing objective to correspond to is very modern. (This is one of the reasons he is the first modern philosopher) Most people don't consider this argument, and turn to his ontological argument instead (which was just him atomizing the former argument). The idea is a mere contingent substance isolated by itself.

There is something about ideas that must ultimately make us realize they correspond to a reality outside.

I want to add, this alluring, spontaneous self-generation of all (divinity) that Hinduism speaks of is similar to Descartes position (held against the scholastics in Descartes's "Replies to Objections") that God creates himself. I have over the years seen more and more how Descartes started modern philosophy and rationalism, but did so in such a subtle way. Nevertheless we get our information about the philosophy from the world. Is this a mistake? Must a cause always precede the effect at least in some way? Lots of questions. The quantum eraser experiments comes to mind.

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Modern theory of time itself says there is no difference between eternity and time, the spiritual and the material as well. Very much like Yoruba religions