Witness and testimony cannot be connected to faith — javi2541997

This is a misunderstanding of how witness and testimony are meant in the context of Christianity. They are not meant like objective or scientific evidence, they are not meant like an instrument that, once you have it, you don’t need faith because you have the evidence of witness.

Moreover, faith in the context of Christianity does not come just from a spontaneous decision to believe in God:

Faith comes from the point that you believe in something so blindly — javi2541997

Faith in Christianity is meant like a chain: there is an experience given by God and this experience is transmitted by those who decide to communicate their subjective experience. Witness in Christianity is exactly like witness of beauty given by artists: their witness doesn’t prove anything, because art is a subjective experience. Nonetheless, it works very effectively in the world of humanity, if we consider how many artworks are considered art masterpieces all over the world. Like you need artists in order to be involved into the passion for art, and this way artists work as witnesses of art, the same way you need other believers who work as witnesses, in order for you to be involved in faith. In this process, faith is anyway necessary, because, as I said, this kind of witness has nothing to do with the scientific kind of evidence.

You confirmed what I said: if those who talk are expert people, you are not interested in considering their flaws: it is like you think “They are experts! They must be right! We don’t need evidence!“, and, on the other side, “Angelo Cannata is not an expert, so, it is good to ask for empirical evidence!”.
The funny thing is that these “experts” are not expected to give evidence of something that can be easily verified (which is a clear definition of consciousness), while at the same time you ask me to give evidence of its non existence! So, you put the burden of proof on those who deny the existence of something that is supposed to be easily verified.
According to this criterion, if somebody says that Santa Claus exists, the burden of proof is on those who question its existence!
So, those who say that the Emperor is naked are to be considered “armchair philosophy”, by principle, whithout any need to check, and viceversa.

I refer to their expertise in the area. If you have equivalent expertise or some other reason others should value your opinions highly then do tell us why? — universeness

It looks like you aren’t even so much interested in understanding the problems contained in the topic: for you what is enough is that they have expertise. As a consequence, what they say must be necessary correct, it must be solid.
What’s the point of making discussions here if experts have to be just honoured because of their expertise, and we have to ignore purposedly our perplexity? Isn’t this just the situation of the Emperor’s New Clothes story?

I could never be that defeatist — universeness

As I said, we are talking about science. In science there is not defeatist or non defeatist, optimism or non optimism. Science is made by scientific procedures, hypotheses that must be clear, experiments, repeatability.

What is clear in research on consciousness?

I will continue to value the work being done by Roger Penrose, Stuart Hameroff, Sam Harris, Dan Dennett, Steve Pinker, Demis Hassabis — universeness

Science is not made by respect or value. It doesn't matter how famous or respectable these people are. Science is made by experimental evidence, clarity, strict definitions.

a full and complete definition or concept of consciousness does not exist.
— Angelo Cannata

Why do you feel qualified to make such a statement, — universeness

The question is very simple:
1) either such a definition does not exist
2) or it does not exist.

If 1) then I am right, if 2) then I would like to know it.

It is a complete nonsense that science is doing all over the world, for the following reasons: a full and complete definition or concept of consciousness does not exist. This means that all scientific researchers all over the world don't know what they are looking for; whenever they think they have found something, it is impossible to know what it has to do with consciousness, because when they say "consciousness" they don't know what they are talking about. If they build some definition of consciousness and they find something related to it, it will still be impossible to know if that conscious being is really experiencing consciousness, because you cannot enter inside other beings and see how they experience their own consciousness.
So, scientists have no idea of
- what they are looking for
- what has to be considered evidence of what they are looking for
- how to get evidence that what they found works as what they are looking for and is what they are looking for.

Nonetheless they are spending so much time and energies and conferences on it!

You are mixing scientific understanding and philosophical understanding. Science is based on experimental evidence and is never ultimate, philosophical understanding is based on systems of ideas and is aimed at ultimate understanding and, in this sense, coincides with metaphysics. The philosophical one is impossible for the reasons you said: we are immersed and involved in whatever we try to know. A philosophical understanding is possible if we try to conceive it as provisional, limited, conditioned, imperfect, rather than ultimate.

We get the very idea of being evolved from its very properties and mechanics from the very fact of being inside our being evolved from its very properties and mechanics, so, the very idea of being evolved from its very properties and mechanics is unreliable.

considering we evolved from its very properties and mechanics - we may be perfectly equipped — Benj96

That's exactly the reason why we cannot trust our understanding. The very concept of "understanding" is undermined by the fact that we try to understand what we are part of. Every aspect and element of the action of "understanding" falls into the influence of our subjectivity, so that there is no reason why anything in our understanding should be reliable.

It is because, by saying it, we put us as a reference point to understand the universe: by saying that the universe has intelligence, the reference point to understand what intelligence is is human intelligence, even if we think that the intelligence of the universe is superior to us. It is the same mechanism of imagining God with anthropomorphic attributes: the reference point is human, even if we think that God is infinitely superior to us.

Can you better explain, please?

It seems to me that in the background of this discussion there is the idea that intelligence and consciousness are extremely important elements of the universe, so that we have some tendency to even interpret it entirely under this category, like a conscious universe or an intelligent universe. This is still the ancient human tendency and desire to conceive ourselves as the center of the universe.
From a scientific point of view, intelligence and consciousness are just things that work in the universe, like all other things, like our arms or legs, or nose.
Imagine to interpret the universe as a pan-leggism, or pan-armism, or pan-nosism. It would be ridiculous, of course, because we immediately realize that our legs or arms don’t have such a great importance to make them a key to interpret the whole universe.
Well, is intelligence or consciousness more important than legs or arms? How can we trust any judgement, since it is intelligence evaluating itself? From this point of view, our arms and legs are really much more intelligent than our brain, because, at least, they do not cultivate the pretence to be the center of the world or the basic key to interpret the universe.

I confess that the law seems tautological, trite, useless — Art48

Actually it is quite problematic.
Some years ago I think I discovered a paradox I called Angelo Cannata’s paradox, since I haven’t found it anywhere else. it is exactly about the law of identity.

Another problem arises if we consider the subjectivity involved in whatever we think of.

Balance has to be reached between personal and civic commitment, a compromise that respects subjective experience while not detracting from the possibility of objectivity. — Enrique

I agree that we cannot get rid of categories and ideas based on objectivity. It is just impossible. The problem is how to make a fruitful relation between these things. I don’t think a good solution is some sort of half subjectivity/half objectivity, like saying that a lot of things are subjective, but a lot are objective as well. This would sound to me like just giving up in finding a real relation between the two things.
I would express the situation in these terms: we see that we exist in a world of subjectivity, but we cannot even think of it without using objective categories and reference points. I think that what makes them really connected is the context of ideas of human experience: we realize that we are subjects who, for some mysterious reason, perceive in their existence a lot of inexorable things that look nothing but undeniable objectivity. It is an existential condition.
I think this is different both from saying that everything is subjective and from saying that objectivity exists for sure. I think that this kind of existentialism is a ground different from both things. In existentialism, subjectivity is not like a soap bubble where we are imprisoned; rather, it is the source of art, expressivity, creativity, perception of freedom. Objectivity is not the level of certainty, reality out there, values valid for everybody and everywhere; rather, it is the human experience of being subject to things that we are unable to master, like death, competition between subjects, materiality, things that actually can be turned into positive experiences if we have some patience to work on them and harmonize them with subjectivity.
In this context, scientific research on consciousness can be helpful if it recognizes its limits. There is no point in establishing in advance what science is unable to reach, but also there is no point in thinking that science, sooner or later, has the potentiality to master absolutely everything. This claim would mean exactly forgetting the existential perspective I suggested.

A consequence of what I said is that it is impossible not only to understand how it is being like a bat, but actually it is impossible to me to understand how it is being like me. The moment I realize something, I am already referring to something belonging to the past. Knowledge of the present is impossible: if I think of the present, what I am thinking is a thinkable aspect of the experience, the experience that I needed to abandon, for a moment, to be able to think of the thinkable part of it. This means that the moment I think of consciousness, I am not experiencing it anymore, because my attention is taken by expressing it to myself. If I stop expressing it to myself, then I am experiencing consciousness. We can combine in our present, probably, thinking and experiencing, but, anyway, what we are thinking can never coincide with what we are experiencing; it is always just a copy of some thinkable part of it.

models of psychology and brain function can enhance subjective self-awareness — Enrique

We shouldn’t confuse enhanced perception with the basic phenomenon of subjectivity.
Of course perception can be enhanced by knowledge. For example, if I get the knowledge that certain feeling unwell is caused by chemicals present in the air, I learn to mentally connect these things, I can learn the smell of that polluted air, learn how its presence slowly acts in my feeling, so, I get a completely different interpretation of what initially was just a generic and confused feeling unwell. The same way people can educate their taste, becoming able to recognize shades in the taste of a special wine, or harmonies and styles in music. But all of this doesn’t touch in the least the fact that, whatever my interpretation of my feelings is, it remains unique and impossible to express even to myself: even the memory that I can have of my past feelings will never be able to give me again the experience that is definitely lost in the past. It is a question about being internal: I am internal to myself and I cannot absolutely make anyone else internal to me; I am internal to my present and I cannot absolutely make myself internal again to a moment of mine of the past, even of just one second ago; each part of the space is internal to itself and it cannot be repeated by any other part of the space, for a simple reason: because it is not the same part, it is another one. Two atoms are not the same atom. Two moments are not and will never be able to be the same moment. The hidden ambition of science of consciousness is to defeat the problem of non repeatability. Science is based of repeatability. What cannot be repeated cannot be scientific. Consciousness is feeling the non repeatable. When we make a photo, we have some hidden ambition to make that moment repeatable, but we have to realize that the photo witnesses the opposite: that moment is definitely lost. It is the same dismay we feel when somebody we knew very well dies: how is it possible that the experience of the presence and life of that person is definitely cancelled, definitely lost in the past? So, I would even say that all this science about consciousness and magic quantum physics hides inside it the ancient human desire to defeat death without our own existential involvement.

They don’t have the slightest idea of what they are talking about. From a scientific point of view, there is nothing to explain, everything is already explained the moment you say that consciousness is a product of the brain. All the rest is scientific details that have nothing to do with philosophy. It is like explaining how it is possible that our body moves. Once you understood that your muscles make the movement, all other thousands of books are just details that add nothing to the basic idea that you already have.
So, there is a basic first mistake in all these discussions: pretending that we don’t know the basics of the scientific point of view.
The other mistake is that whatever science explains is the shareable aspect. Science is completely unable to deal with things that are impossible to share. Consciousness is a word that works tremendously well to create this ambiguity. It can be even referred to plants, the moment we see that plants are able to react to something. So, consciousness is a tremendously good topic, because of its greatly confused ambiguity, to create endless and sterile discussions.
The most essential aspect of consciousness, if we really want to avoid ambiguity and confusion, is the one that is impossible to talk about: it is your own experience about yourself, your perceptions, your emotions, whatever you perceive inside you. The moment we talk about it, we aren’t talking anymore about it, because we have immediately automatically selected, isolated, those aspects that we can talk about, leaving apart what is impossible to communicate, that is, the real experience of consciousness.
Of course, I know that this applies now to me as well: what am I talking about? I am talking about what I can’t describe by words, because I cannot make you enter inside myself, inside my way of perceiving myself, my feelings. Do you feel that such an incommunicable experience happens to you? Well, that is consciousness. If you don’t realize anything incommunicable inside the experience of yourself, then you will never be able to understand anything about consciousness: in this case, what you will talk and think about will always be what is expressible by words, not the real experience of consciousness.

why would you question the wisdom of many theologians & non-theologians — Agent Smith

Wow! At this point, the only thing I can do is to bow to the immense wisdom of those high level people. As they say in an Italian comedy “with my face under their feet, without even asking them to keep still”.

Some claim metaphysics is not open to empirical testing i.e. you can't verify/falsify them via experience and yet, we have the so-called problem of evil (divine predicates incompatible with observation). — Agent Smith

That’s why the problem of evil is not a metaphysical one: you cannot prove metaphysically that either good or evil exist, because they depend entirely on subjective evaluations.

The historical - cultural context of the biblical text you quoted has nothing to do with metaphysics. In that context the relationship with God was personal, social, existential, non philosophical. If I ask a friend to give me evidence of his friendship, or seriousness, or loyalty, I am not doing metaphysics, I am acting in a context of human relationship. Otherwise even a dog sniffing something to get evidence of what it is becomes a dog who has a metaphysical mentality.

I think what you quoted is still different from what I mean. It seems to me that Evan Thompson deals with phenomenology and emotions by using an analytical an rational mind. Does Evan Thompson base his own research on his own emotions as an instrument of research?
I mean, there is a difference between studying music and playing music. Evan Thompson, in this metaphor, studies music, while what I am talking about is playing music.
This would rise the question how philosophy will be different from literature and poetry. I think it can be different, while still adopting their similar ways of expressing things.

Yes, that is actually the core question, I think. My perception is that philosophy today is going to be stuck either in being a copycat of science, or endlessly and unfruitfully discussions in deciding if reality exists or not, or other reflections that look to me like just trying how some ideas interact together, with the same criterion we use to test computers and software. So, I thought something common to these sterile activities is that they ignore the emotional, spiritual side of us as humans.
I think that, as a consequence, the work of philosophy should be a kind of research that tries to connect reasoning and emotions, rather than dealing with them as with alternative worlds. For example: we can discuss technically about the problem if reality exists: this is one side, the rational side. Or we can discuss how the existence or non existence of reality involves our emotions: this is the emotional side. So far, they have been treated still as divorced fields. The connection happens if we ask: can we make a decision, if reality exists or not, based on our emotions? Does it make any sense to decide that we will consider reality existent or non existent depending on our mood? Does it make sense to consider the world of our emotions and feelings as the real world and, as a consequence, the rational reflections about it just as a derivative part? Does it make sense to philosophize with the conscious intention of experiencing some emotional feelings, produced by our artistic playing with ideas, rather than considering ideas as a way to reach truth and reality? Does it make sense to consider philosophy like a kind of “playing ideas”, the same way one can play a piano, or a guitar?

Of course they are subjective: are you able to think of them without automatically conditioning them with your brain? In other words: are you able to think of them without using your brain, that is, to think of them without thinking?

Isn't this a loud contradiction? — Alkis Piskas

The contradiction is not in me, it is in the idea of truth. My reasoning starts from adopting the idea that truth exists and then I show that this adoption leads us to doubt, skepticism and agnosticism about truth. In other words, the reasoning that I show is: if truth exists, then the consequence of this is that it doesn't exist.

Doubts should always exist, but they should serve as a path in establishing truths and knowledge. Isn't this the purpose of philosophy and the philosophers? — Alkis Piskas

I don’t think so. Establishing that the purpose of philosophy is establishing truths and knowledge means that these reference points will be treated as beyond dispute. But the history of philosophy gives evidence that the very existence of truth has been questioned since the beginning: think, for example, about the sophists, who tried to show how tricky our language and our thinking is; think about Heraclitus: if everything is becoming, then an established truth cannot exist, it will be becoming as well; think of Nietsche, who said that we don’t know where to go, there is no up, no down, no orientation. You might object that all these positions can be considered as efforts to establish truth: the truth that truth is becoming, or even the truth that truth does not exist. But this objection works like a closed system: closed systems works always, independently from their content. For example, it is impossible to question that everything is number, because such a system will be always able to answer that any objection can be traced back to a structure of numbers. This way, even saying that the essence of reality is, let’s say, tomatoes, or horses, is able to be an invulnerable system. For this reason, any invulnerable system is meaningless, because it is able to maintain anything and the opposite of anything. This means that the idea of truth itself is meaningless.

If he were always and constantly in doubt about everything, he would be a mentally ill person — Alkis Piskas

I don’t think so. I have adopted the perspective of doubting about everything for dozens of years now and I don’t think I am mentally ill: currently I work at a hospital and I don’t think they would allow a mentally ill person to work in my position.

if I live in a constant doubt, it means that I would also doubt that I doubt. Which leads to vicious circle — Alkis Piskas

Doubting of doubting is not a vicious, but a virtuous circle: it is a circle that reinforces itself, similar to certain phisical phenomenons, like the audio feedback effect in microphones. Doubting of doubting just confirms that I cannot trust anything, I cannot even trust my doubting. Not trusting my doubting means just that I cannot rest firmly and comfortably in a simple methodology of doubting: I need to always question my questioning as well. Where is the problem in this?

And then of course to an asylum — Alkis Piskas

I agree that we need some kind of asylum, but not because of any philosophical principle. We need some kind of asylum because we are humans, we are not machines, we get tired, our emotions need to find some kind of rest on something. But, since this is not a philosophical, but a human need, the solution is not any philosophical thought, but some practical instruments, like periodically going to bed, having experiences of love and friendship, having a home, or a tent, having periods of rest.

A persons's reality may include doubts but it cannot be built on doubting evertyting. It is mainly build on knowledge and certitudes — Alkis Piskas

I think here again you confuse philosophical with human needs. If I go shopping, I cannot answer the teller “You don’t know if the things in my bag exists, you don’t know if my money exists”. I just need to pay. But this is a human and practical need, not a philosophical one. Practically I need just to pay and not to create problems to the teller, but all the doubts I expressed are true (I know I used the word “true” now, but this is needed by language, not by philosophy).
There is a solution that is better than certitudes and knowledge, that actually are very misleading concepts. The solution is trust. Although everything is exposed to doubt, my being human forces me to trust a lot of things and people. So, I pay my money to the teller not because I have any certainty that my money or the teller exist, but because my human condition forces me to trust some practical assumptions and treat them as if they were something “true”. I don’t “know” if fire would burn my hand, but my human condition forces me to treat it as if it was something true.

This is (pace those people here who want me to be severe, exact and giving strict evidence of my statements :grin: ) Heidegger: being does not exist; being is our human condition of being immersed in time, in our needs, in our mental limits.

I think that one of the hardest difficulties that both philosophy and science have met in their history is when they said “Of course!” about anything. “Of course!” means “There's no need to inquire!”. This kills research, progress, dialectic, debate. So, I would say that, with your message, you have given your contribution to prevent both philosophy and science from progressing.
Please, don’t take this personally: I have just used a method that is extremely frequently used in philosophy, that is, applying statements to themselves and seeing what happens. Frequently the result is a paradox, like “I am lying”, or it can be an instrument for progress like Descartes doubting about his doubts and taking the result as a positive resource.

I think the OP has nothing to do with any religious or spiritual doctrine about karma; I think it is rather a very philosophical question, but it creates some confusion because of the use of the word “karma”, that immediately sends us to religions and spiritualities.
I would express the OT this way: if the nature of this world is able to completely annihilate any human effort to do something good, to improve, to be more generous, altruist, what’s the point of making any effort in trying to be better? I mean annihilate at all levels, including the very person who is trying to be better. In other words, we have absolutely no evidence that anything good causes anything else good.
My answer is that the motivation to be or to do anything good cannot rely on anything objective. It can only be a choice, based on the whole of ourselves, our humanity, our emotions, our sensitivity, without excluding some reasoning.

we know how to use it and can predict what other utilities it can be practical for — Benj96

Whatever happens in pragmatism is always interpreted by us. When you see that a watch works, you can predict its behaviour and you can build more watches, all these things are under your interpretation, so that ultimately you cannot say what is really happening when you see that the watch works, that what you predict happens, that you can build more watches. In one word: we cannot know anything ultimately for sure. Working things are not evidence that we are in contact with reality, because the fact that they work is an intepretation of ours as well.

What would be the point in any pursuit of knowledge, insight and wisdom because it can never be objective true — Benj96

Philosophy is not technology: it doesn’t matter if its results are weird, not practical, not comfortable, or useless. Philosophy is exploration of the most ultimate things that we are able to think of.
After doing philosophy, we can work on the utility of its results, how they can be used, we can do whatever we want with the results. But this is a next step. The first step must be free from any pre-decision, otherwise your exploration is already limited in advance to what you decided is acceptable, or useful, or whatever. What’s the point of doing philosophy after having established in advance any conditions? If there are conditions, then it is not philosophy. We can discuss these conditions and it is already philosophy, because it is already an effort to explore the most ultimate things that we are able to think about.

Yes, I think that not reading my posts is an option that deserves high respect.

Yes, I was a bit surprised by this question: didn’t the very term “metaphysics” come from the name they gave to some Aristotle’s books sorted after the “physics” ones, and then metaphysics became based on what Aristotle wrote on those books? I know that now “metaphysics” means a lot of things, even contradictory things, but, again, if we turn this thread into a debate on what metaphysics is, we just leave my main point. I have no interest here in discussing deeply what metaphysics is today: let’s do this way: everybody in this discussion gives to every word whatever meaning they consider the most appropriate, while understanding that other people can have a different approach. Otherwise we will just pass the time in the definition of each word, that actually seems very similar to those who see the trees, but can’t see the forest.

A lot of topics would distract from my main point. Let's say that I am interpreting Heidegger my way, or I am drawing some consequences from his philosophy, or whatever. I just need Heidegger as a starting point because he made impossible carrying on while considering being as an abstract, perfect and independent philosophical concept. In other words, after Heidegger, certain metaphysical philosophers like Parmenides and Aristotle cannot be agreed anymore as if nothing happened after them. What is important is that Heidegger proceeded in a very systematic, methodologic, severe way, so that it is ontology itself that forces ontology to be connected with time and human condition. This means that human condition and time, that are unreliable and subjective experiences, actually are also unavoidable and necessary, because of the demolition of objective ontology made by Heidegger.

Yes, this is what I mean.

Heidegger was later continued by Gadamer. Everything is interpretation and we cannot do but interpret.

You may use whatever synonym or appropriate replacement for “set-up” as you please. “Established”, “came to fruition”, “exists”, “acts in a certain predictable manner” etc etc. But as you’ll see from the thread the discussion is about whether the properties of the universe are predetermined from the beginning or if they emerged randomly and symbiotically like an evolution. “Set-up” I’m pretty sure falls somewhere in that spectrum. — Benj96

This doesn't change the validity of my criticism. What you said is "I am not talking about my interpretation of the universe, but about the universe itself and how it works itself". But this way you don't realize that, even when you refer to the universe itself, or to its rules themselves, you are still talking about your interpretation of these things. In other words, it is impossible to refer to anything objectively, to anything itself, because when we say "anything itself" we are already applying our interpretation of what we are referring to. In other words, it is impossible to refer to being itself, because whenever we say it we are already interpreting it. This is just Heidegger.

I think you are mistaking the map for the territory.
The universe is not “set up” in any way. It is us who interpret the universe as universe and building mental frames, schemes, ideas, concepts, to try to understand it.
It is even bizarre that, after we devise a mental scheme to understand what we call “the universe”, then we forget what we have done and we pretend that the universe is “set up” or obeys according to the schemes we built.

Let’s consider some things.
Let’s imagine that you were the only person with blonde hair in the world and in history. Would this make you “the unique person who you are”? I am sure it wouldn’t. All other aspects of you, including your personality, whatever is part of your psychology, work like your being blonde: they are just accessory aspects attached to you. I think the essence of this is that all we are talking about are objective things. Whenever we talk of something, it becomes automatically an object; even when we say “subjectivity”, what we are talking about is subjectivity treated as an object, so, actually we are not really talking about subjectivity.
I think the true, real subjectivity is the experience you make when you realize that you are the only person in the world able to perceive your will, your choices, your decisions, like “Now I decide to move my arm; now I decide to think this number”. Perhaps in the future it will be possible to remotely command your arms and even your thoughts. But, even if this was possible in the future, who was the author of those thoughts? Let’s imagine a technology making me able to force your brain to think number “5”, so that you realized that your brain really thought the number I decided it to think of. Even if I was able to make you wanting to think number “5”, in that case you were forced to want something, but the ultimate source of this will was still me.
So, I would say that the real experience of uniqueness of you is when you feel, you experiment a will coming from you. Even if that will was caused by something different from your will, nonetheless what you perceive is your will, it doesn’t matter if it is the real origin of your thoughts or if it was forced by something else.
This means that you are the only person in the world able to perceive yourself willing something. This cannot be transferred, nor cloned, nor anything, by any technology or disease, or malfunction of the brain. I mean, even if you are wrong in thinking that it is really your will, actually you are right, because it is your will manoeuvered by something else. If you perceive your will, then your will is there. This is different from Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”, because the experience I am talking about is entirely subjective, exclusive to you, you cannot express it to other people, so, it isn’t at all a certainty, which instead Descartes thought it was about his thinking.
We can make a computer able to think that it was able to want something, but we have absolutely no idea how this can be evaluated, compared to our DNA making us feeling our ability to want something.
What I am saying is that this way I have not at all proved your uniqueness, nor the existence of your will. You are the only person in the world able to decide if your perception of your will makes you unique.
I said that saying “subjectivity” is still an objectivation of the concept of subjectivity. The same way, all the things I said now are an objectivation as well. I just tried to express my subjective experience, trying to see if you feel something similar. Whatever you answer, I won’t ever be able to have evidence of your experience.
So, our uniqueness is confined inside our subjectivty and we can talk about it only subjectively, that is without any possibility of getting any evidence. This is, I think, the only way to make an idea, but it is better to say “an attempt to share an experience”, of our uniqueness. It is like a message in a bottle, that I try to send from the island of my subjectivity. It is just a hope, an attempt. All the rest is condemned to be objective and, as such, not unique.

You have just built a self interpreting system. As such, it cannot fail, because it is closed. It is a frequent mistake in philosophy. This way you can explain everything with everything: it will just work, always. You can say that the roots of religions are, let’s say, dogs, or tomatoes, or maths. Once the starting idea is made, it will be a matter of moments to build a whole working system.

Aren't wishful thinking, Plato and Christianity products of the non-dumb universe as well?

If we are a product of the universe, and the universe is not dumb, where does the error of believing in an eternal soul come from?