I just got obfuscation. If you start to pin him down he will miraculously agree with you.

If you don't identify the object you perceive, how do you know what you have witnessed?

To witness something you only have to be present, you don’t have to think, or know anything. The best way to describe what I mean is in regard to revelation. During revelation, the person (who witnesses) is hosted by a heavenly being and witnesses something which they can’t understand, which is inconceivable. And yet they bare witness to what happened. The Old Testament is full of descriptions of people witnessing things which there are not words to describe. It is the heavenly host who enables them to witness by allowing them to see through their eyes. To become the host, to witness the event, or state and then to be returned to the world. During this process the witness, doesn’t have the mental capacity to process the information. But they know, experienced what happened in some way.

So something is witnessed before the mind then processes the sensory information.

although the Buddha said there is nothing not subject to change

“Subject to”.
Is there something absent change, or would that be nothing at all. Or there could be no thing, other than change.
This would suggest that upon enlightenment the Buddha ceases to be a thing.

Thanks for an insightful post.
Something I contemplate at length is how being is somehow static and mobile. Neither one nor the other.
A static being is like the Buddha in stillness.
A mobile being is like a presence observing life as if watching the world go by through the window of a vehicle. An experience of events while travelling, rather than places and moments. The sense of self is experienced as a presence in and defined by the movement. We are fellow travellers, rather than fellow fixed states.

The logic of thinking difference involves things which are identified as being different. I don't see how you can escape that.

Don’t you mean perceived, rather than identified.
To be perceived, something merely needs to be witnessed, this does not require identification.

I believe consciousness is informational in nature, not physical. And so like for all informational things, it is a mistake to call consciousness physical, conflating it with its medium, the brain.

I agree with your point here, but I think it is necessary in a discussion about consciousness to delineate consciousness and mind, or mental activity. As I find they are often confused.
Consciousness is the aliveness, sentience of a being.
Mind is information processing and storage.

They are both intimately involved in experience, but are quite different.

No, I'm dismissing it because you can't show that it exists. You need to explain what it is to have a non-physical thing exist, then demonstrate that such a thing actually exists in reality.

I note you didn’t answer my question, what sort of proof do you require? You do understand, I presume how hard it is to prove something.
I have put forward a rational argument for consciousness to be present in life forms. A presence which doesn’t appear to be necessary if the world is just physical. If the argument has merit, it is inappropriate to dismiss it on the grounds that what it entails can’t be proved, prior to an appraisal of the argument.
As I said, it is dismissing a philosophical enquiry on the grounds that it can’t be proved to be valid, in the terms of one particular philosophical position, which is generally regarded to be opposed to it, ie physicalism.
I can predict now that whatever I say, it will be rejected out of hand for not meeting these requirements.

Yes, it is emergent from physical processes alone. No, the physical processes for consciousness must occur to have consciousness. This is why we can put someone under anesthesia and knock them unconscious. We stop the physical process of the brain responsible for consciousness.

Correction, you are claiming that consciousness is emergent from computation alone, aren’t you?
Saying it is emergent from physical processes is hand waving, because that also includes what a I am saying and which you were denying previously.

I noted that objectively by some AIs actions, they have very low level consciousness.

Show me that they are conscious? They may be philosophical zombies, ie perfect mimics.

Its incredibly difficult, and part of the hard problem of consciousness. Do you see green the way I do? We have color blind people who don't. What do they see the different colors as?

Line of argument is used in discussions of qualia, about differences between people’s qualia due to genetic variation. It doesn’t include the fact that 99% of the experience of one person is identical to that of another, with a nuance of difference. If we were not near as dammit identical clones, our social activity would be far more difficult. This is not comparable to the obvious differences between the conscious experience of a mouse and a high spec’ computer.

Consciousness is a presence of a being and self in the world with all that entails. It is the anima Mundi of living organisms. A dynamic electrical force, field, unifying the whole being, as an entity.

Its a fun thought experiment, but its essentially the 'evil demon' argument from Descartes or 'brain in a vat'.

It isn’t, it is a serious argument. Can you give me one thing in a zombie world which could not be accomplished by an identical unconscious being, which is accomplished in our world of conscious being’s?

We cannot know that. For all we know, there is a subjective experience of being a single cell.

You’ve just accepted my rational argument. That’s pretty much what I was claiming and you were rejecting.

Of being even something we don't consider life like an atom. After all, we are composed of atoms, so there is something in matter that causes a subjective experience. We just don't know fully what that is yet.

So why are you dismissing it out of hand one minute and then considering it the next.

We don't have the answer to what its like for something else to subjectively experience, therefore it is outside of what can be known.

This is incorrect, it can be known, we are it. We don’t fully know the processes involved, be it is known, we just need to be able to see the wood for the trees.

A physical process is a supervenient relationship to the physical entities involved in the process. You'll need to explain specifically why it’s not a physical process.

I’m not saying it isn’t a physical process, it’s just a different physical process, an ethereal one in a supevalent relationship with it’s physical partner.

What was your point?

You are dismissing the ethereal being because it can’t to demonstrated physically to exist.

No, consciousness is simply a more advanced form of computation.

To the extent, perhaps, that a chemical reaction is a form of computation. But that does not encompass what consciousness is.
You seem to be about to declare that consciousness is emergent from computation alone. That if there is sufficient computation going on in a system, or body, then it will be conscious.

Is AI subjectively conscious? Who knows? We never will.

I don’t know why anyone would think that AI might be conscious. Perhaps they conflate intelligence with consciousness. They are not the same thing. Take the example of an old fashioned computer, indeed one could be made out of pulleys and rope. If big enough it could perform advanced computation. Would it at some point become conscious, Pulleys and rope?

Just like I won't know what its like for you to be subjectively conscious as you are either.

It’s not that difficult, we are near identical. In a sense humans are all clones of a common ancestor. Genetic variation does not alter that to any great extent.

As for objective forms of consciousness, yes, AI could be said to be conscious. Not to the level of a human, but more at the level of a bug or fish. We have robots and other forms of AI that have environmental awareness, self-modeling, and learning. Do they have subjective emotional feelings? Don't know. But a robot can have stress detectors and speed up or slow down rapidly to avoid obstacles it would consider it should avoid. Does that entire process gain an overall 'feel' like we do? Who knows.

Yes, that all makes sense, but it doesn’t capture consciousness, it’s all within the scope of computation and intelligence. A computer with sensory apparatus (stress detectors) measuring changes in its environment and able to control other apparatus which can perform physical tasks. Can be like a human, or a bug, or a fish. But it is still a mechanical machine, you know levers and rope.

Have you come across the idea of a philosophical zombie? There could be another universe like ours, but without any consciousness. There could be advanced life, indeed humans just like us. But no one is conscious. There would be no other difference.

This just sounds like you're separating physical matter from 'physical matter in action and process'. If it’s not physical, what is it? This is always the problem. You have no real definition of non-physical that we can clearly point to that doesn't involve the physical. Can you explain non-physical apart from 'a physical process'?

I don’t have a problem, because I’m not trying to prove the existence of an ethereal body using physical means and parameters. That’s for you to think about, as that’s what you are asking for.

As I said in my rational argument, there is not requirement in the world as described in physical terms for consciousness to exist (do tell me if there is?). Therefore its existence must be for another reason. Which is to evolve a subtle, or ethereal being. Naturally this cannot be measured physically, because it’s not physical.

Let me suggest a way of looking at this. When life was first evolving, that simple form of computation, chemical reactions, which I mentioned earlier. This developed until there were self replicated units. Primitive cells.
Once they were self replicating,( I am oversimplifying to make my point) they were able to evolve more sophisticated forms. All very well, they were like our philosophical zombie. But then something happened that was due to something in the chemicals, constituting these cells. Something not produced by the computation, but that was present in the materials they were made of. The electrical charge somehow became an electrical field encompassing the whole cell. Some cells adapted to this new phenomenon and found it enhanced their development and rate of survival in a competing pools of new organisms. Then at a later stage, this integrated organism with an electric field and properties became conscious. Not through the computation, but through the electrical activity involved in that computation.

So we have organisms with a form of consciousness based on metabolic reactions, including complex electrical interactions and states, out of which emerges a primitive consciousness. This is not emergent out of information processing. But an electrical metabolic process, where the process is about organising molecules into structures in the cell, so as to self replicate and compete in a competitive pool of organisms.

This would then develop into larger sentient beings, long before they developed brains and information processing like we see in the human brain.

Consciousness came before intelligence. Not the other way around.

Again, sounds like you're ascribing what is non-physical to a physical process.

No, they coexist in a supervenient relationship.

You have just re-asserted your claim that anything that can’t be proved to exist is a figment of my imagination. You have proved my point for me.

What proof do you require?

Yes, that's consciousness. Consciousness does not exist as some independent ethereal thing. It’s simply a category of physical process from the brain.

That’s not consciousness, it’s computation. The brain performs computation, like a computer. Are computers (AI even) conscious? They can perform the same computation as the brain, surely.

Consciousness is something present in organisms which have a very primitive brain, or no brain. In genetics terms we are closely related to trees. They are more conscious than any super computer and yet they don’t have a brain.

What requirement does a brain have for consciousness? Computation will do all that is required.

This is simply creating a category, but not denying its a physical process.

I am denying it’s a physical process, it has a supervenient relation to the physical. It is hosted by the physical, but is itself not physical.

You remove the physical process, this 'non-physical' thing does not exist independently as something real.

Perhaps, but the physical being would not exist either, in this scenario, they are joined at the hip.

Ok, this fits for my ethereal body. A change in the ethereal body requires an alteration in the physical body, (including mental alterations). But the physical body doesn’t require an alteration in the ethereal body. Although the ethereal body does/may experience that change.

As someone else mentioned supervenience may be a way to elucidate this misunderstanding further?

Thanks, a new word for me. I’m of the opinion that this is going on in the human body, as there are layers of complexity. There are lucid dreams and imaginary worlds, which appear to be experienced. But which don’t necessarily have a subvenient component. Suggesting that there is the supervenient component, that would be present if there were supervenience.

Going to stop you right there because you probably forgot. I am not a 'physicalist'. That's stupid. I simply note that rational science and fact allow us to know a reality that is physical. I have yet to see someone able to point out with conclusive proof the existence of something that is non-physical that is not simply a contextual language game. Science does not run on the idea that there is some type of non-physical substance out there that we can measure and create outcomes from. Well...I can think of a few but those never seem to come up in our conversations. Which tells me that your arguments are still simply the very human desire to have our beliefs and imagination reflect in reality.

Yes, here is the language game (in bold), because you are requiring something non-physical to be demonstrated with physical apparatus/experiment.

I can offer a rational argument for an ethereal being, but I cannot show it to you under the microscope. Therefore it is a figment of my imagination

Here is the argument;
A physical humanity can perform all that is required to live as a human in the physical world without being conscious. (Just like a bat can perform everything required without the power of sight) Consciousness is not required for this, but consciousness is present, therefore it must be required for a different process (purpose). It could be argued, perhaps that it is pre-hensile, or some kind of unintended consequential, in some way. But that would be a bit hand wavey.

This different process is the evolution of an ethereal body, or being. A being hosted, maintained, sustained by the physical body. This ethereal body is a sentient conscious, self conscious entity with a rich experience of a subjective world, real experiences etc. But is entirely dependent on the physical processes in the physical body for its continued existence (in this world). It shares these processes with the physical body. This not only includes the chemical processes, but the processes of mind (x).

Now (x) can perform every mental action required for humanity to live in a material world. Without sentience, without self consciousness. After all, it is all computation. We know that computation can produce an intelligent body, because we have super computers and AI. All the senses in the human body can be responded to computationally without the body being conscious of them, experiencing them. They can be processed in the usual way, by the mental activity of the brain.

Now I will ask you, is there something that a human needs to do to live in this world which definitively requires conscious sentience to do?

In particular the focus here is on the use of Mental Acts and Physical Acts in terms of Philosophy of Mind. I think there is still worthy groudn to cover within more a more focused scope.

Yes and I’m hoping to learn something.

I’m not a philosopher so can’t use the terminology much and might not be familiar with the arguments.
I would say though, that the problem seems to be in the idea that a human being is both a mind and an animal and how to account for it. I think that some of the approaches have baggage as a result of other philosophical arguments. For example accounting for how it came to exist and whether a mind can exist without a body (idealism), or how a body can have a mind (physicalism).

I come to this from a different direction, where I am interested in what is going on. Not necessarily how it came to be, or how it works. But rather what are we, what are we doing and where are we going.

When I look at a human in this way, I see a being*, in a world, learning, practicing, participating in a world of dense objects (material), where there are a set of very hard constraints and how they adapt and live in such a place. With the goal of becoming proficient, or wise as beings who can act as creators in that world.

*a being, with a highly integrated mind and body, resulting in an agent with the ability to mould their surroundings.

I think sometimes philosophical machinations can be so reductive that they fall prey to becoming so abstracted from any real life scenario that the crux of the matter is lost.

Yes and this issue is a good example, it’s quite a simple issue when one realises that causes regress to a first cause. Unless they are the result of an intelligent mind. In which case in order to regress to a first cause, it would mean that the agency in the first cause had in mind, Beethoven’s fifth, or Hamlet, (or anything which a mind can produce), when determining to create the universe.

At any rate, I think the really interesting question is that of mental causation - of how ideas and thoughts can have physical consequences, as they plainly do. I don't think it's an insoluble problem, but I think that the assumption the brain is a physical thing is the wrong place to start.

The way I see it is that a human has something extra than anything else in the world. An ability to act in a unique way, free of instinctive, or deterministic patterns. Which other animals and plants, or physical objects do.
This unique ability is like a vast pool of choices. Any choice can be made and there is no way that external influences, or states determine which choice is made. A human is a chooser, a chooser can choose any order of notes when choosing a musical score, Beethoven for example. But to be able to make more sophisticated choices, the chooser needs a more intelligent way of deciding, rather than a random choice generator. In a human this intelligence takes the form of a being developed by having been evolved in a natural world, of plants and animals.

So a human chooser is intimately acquainted with the ways of the world, through evolution. This means it’s difficult to tease apart the intelligent being from the animal, it evolved in. In a way they are fused together body and mind.

They should remind themselves that all life of this planet is one family, literally brothers and sisters of one common parent* and that they are a result of one continuous lineage of life. One life begetting another all the way through our evolution.
— Punshhh

Yes, good point.

I would go further, in a very real sense we are one being. One instantiation of life and all that that involves.

Maybe

Well I can’t think how else something would be caused.

The billiard balls are under the influence of gravity the whole time and gravity plays a role in the movement and trajectory of the balls and plays a part in the collision. Yet gravity is a force operating (in an unknown way) at a distance from a median point within a in a very large ( in the part played by the planet earth) group of atoms. Acting against a median point amongst another group of atoms.
The white ball holds a force (momentum) as a group of atoms, but not from a median point, but as a group as a whole. That force is only a force in that the white ball is moving relative to the red ball. But perhaps the white ball isn’t moving, but the red ball, the snooker table and the planet are moving towards the white ball with an equivalent force and the white ball is stationary. In which case that same force is now held by the red ball. So in this case the red ball causes the white ball to move.

This would suggest that the cause of the change in momentum of the two balls could be given to numerous different forces, held in various different points in the system. Depending on which perspective the observer is coming from.

Surely everything we know is part of a causal cascade instigated by a demiurge. While mental activity is mini demiurges (us) learning what’s involved in instigating things.

Just noticed that this article was published the same day as your OP:

Teleology: What Is It Good For?, by John O'Callaghan

Nice essay, summed up in this sentence;

But what it does prove is that the random variation of traits that result in survival advantages does not rule out evolution having a teleological end or purpose.

The people who deny this teleological purpose are in a way blind to it. They see things only in the external. This results in a failure to understand what an organism is. In a sense they look at individual organisms, or species and see them as one of those body parts that Frankenstein was working with. But this denies the essence of life which courses through those organisms. They should remind themselves that all life of this planet is one family, literally brothers and sisters of one common parent* and that they are a result of one continuous lineage of life. One life begetting another all the way through our evolution.

*this does not require one individual common parent. But rather a pool of unicellular organisms at the point of the inception of life.

He has a strong and realistic sense of what is possible given the tangible constraints of nature that he is so familiar with. He is not going to shoot for the moon and thereby risk losing what has taken so long to carefully develop. In general he is less ideational and more concrete, whereas progressives are the opposite.

But in the U.K. it made him vulnerable to the newly developed (post 2008) Tory populist ideology. Which has now royally screwed him up. Just like the fishermen, who also fell for the populists. They are now just left reeling and in despair.

Although there is a sink or swim process going on, in which those who can stay afloat are moving into large scale agribusiness which is the new trend.

I live in rural Norfolk and used to work as a polling clerk during elections. I remember seeing the older farmers ( there are not many young farmers) coming to vote who were all the same. They were staunchly conservative, anti immigration and weirdly pro Brexit.

So the trend in these parts is simple to understand. They were mostly coming into farming during the Thatcher years and enjoyed the prosperity it brought. This included the increase in land values, which have now become inflated. And they have witnessed the increase in immigration in the local towns, of mainly Polish people, which many of the more old fashioned and older people dislike.

There is a trend of people of the ages from about 60-80 who felt the prosperity of Thatcher and bought into the Thatcher ideology. Of careful financial management and the entrepreneurial spirit. This aligned well with what farmers do. They have to manage large budgets carefully, often with a small return on investments and run a successful small business.

These ideologies were hammered home through the predominantly right wing press. Along with similar campaigns spreading anti socialist ideology. Farmers were often not educated at University, or exposed to liberal, or socially progressive movements. Where the credibility of left wing policy could become understood. So they were more likely to be swayed by the Tory propaganda. Which probably explains the numbers of farmers who were pro Brexit (about 55%), something which was not in their interests. Because farming was propped up by CAP. They European Common Agriculture Policy, which subsidised farmers, quite heavily. To think, that they thought that a Conservative government would replace that with something as generous. Wonders never cease.

Wouldn't the average man make an average ruler? Someone who doesn't do too much harm or good? I'm thinking of most people I know and none of them would turn into, say, Pol Pot, if they were put in that position.

Assad was an average man, we was an ophthalmologist in London before he became a genocidal maniac.

Being in a pecking order does not make the other's good your good.

It does, you should spend more time with chickens.
When a new bird is introduced to the flock, she finds her place in the pecking order by a stand off with the dominant bird in the flock. If she loses, then she will stand off with other birds around the dominant bird until she finds her level. She then adopts the good of the birds above her in the flock and offers it to those below her in the flock. She also forms alliances and friendships and learns, adopts and maintains the good, or bad behaviours in the flock.

Yes, "consciousness" can mean what I call medical consciousness -- a certain state of responsiveness as opposed to being "knocked out."

Yes, that’s closer to what I was thinking, but it’s inferior to the consciousness of an ant for example. This is because it is a diseased, or disordered animal, hence not functional.
I see consciousness as the me-ness, the sense of me, here, now, aliveness that is present in all organisms. This is a knowing, or inherent knowledge of their own presence. It is not articulated intellectually, but that is not a prerequisite for this kind of consciousness.

By contrast, the consciousness of a human is richer and more integrated with a computational ability which gives self awareness, reflectiveness etc. However I see this self consciousness as emergent from the computational ability in the brain, which is separate from the inherent consciousness of the organism.

So a human is no more conscious than the ant, but has many more developed sensory and mental abilities through which that consciousness is enhanced.

Rehabilitation is punishment? No wonder the jails are so full.

They’re full because it’s a good pyramid (ponzy) scheme.

if I need to commit mass genocide to survive

There are two people doing that right now and anyone who hears about it gets really angry about it (as I did watching the news last night).

Consciousness adds a new aspect to our valuing, because when we come to value something or someone, we not only have a new response to it, we have a new intentional relation. If I commit to someone, I make their good my good in a way that cannot be captured by a physical description.

Sorry my chickens do this too. It’s intrinsic in the pecking order relationship.
I’m not here to argue, because I agree with 99% of what you say. What prompted my to respond was my misreading of “consciousness”. I use it in a different way and what you call consciousness, I call self consciousness(which we observe in higher primates and humans). Whereas I regard my chickens as conscious. While they are not self conscious, they exhibit pretty much every other mental process that happens in humans. Crucially they have sentience, a feeling and knowledge as present in the world. But in some way, difficult to pin down, they don’t have that extra feedback loop of self consciousness, that we have. I don’t see this (in the chicken) as a lesser experience, but rather a more stream of consciousness, direct involvement in their world. Whereas humans indulge in self reflection, pondering, self conscious absent mindedness etc.

God creating universes might be like breathing, in and out. Or it might be for lesser beings, heavenly hosts to do it. We just don’t know.

I don't understand how this response could be a proper answer to my question.

I was suggesting some ways in which God can be the creator of universes, or worlds while not being fully aware (ignorant) of what he was doing.

If you know you can't die, maybe painful "deaths" are tolerable.

Have you ever stood on a nail?

I presented a conference paper on value in April. In it, I argued that valuing is a two step process. First, we must recognize something as valuable. Such recognition requires awareness/consciousness of our response to an object -- a form of self-awareness called "knowledge by connaturality." Most organisms give no evidence of being self-aware. Second, it requires commitment -- an act of will by which we make the valuable actually valued. Again, most organisms do noting to make us think that they possess a will. Instead, they respond automatically and mindlessly to their environment.

Self awareness is not required for step one, or step two. I observe my chickens doing this every day*.
I suggest that all biological organisms have these abilities, albeit in very simple forms, or in embryonic form. That humans and other primates act in the same way most of the time and that the difference between all organisms and humans is only a higher mind function, a more complex and integrated intellectual process, that these primates possess.

*two examples. If I give my chickens a choice of foods at the same time. They will have already decided which one is their favourite. They have remarkable acuity and often know from your actions if you are preparing their favourite food from subtle signs in your behaviour. Secondly when it comes to selecting a roost. They will spend hours looking for and deciding about a suitable roost. They will often try good candidates numerous times before deciding on the one they will use. Once the decision is made they show great determination to roost there even if you chase them away, you might place them in one of the other favoured roosts, but they will not roost there. Their minds are already made up.

If Catholicism is right, then if Catholicism does indeed demand "controlling populations", then controlling populations would thereby be right.

I'm not seeing much here apart from the tautology that if some doctrine is right, then it is right.

Then you would be right, bingo!

For God creating universes might be like breathing, in and out. Or it might be for lesser beings, heavenly hosts to do it. We just don’t know.

God either created out of ignorance or not. Which one do you pick?

I could toss a coin and let you know the result.

If God created the medium, then He should know what a medium is. You cannot act from pure ignorance!

It might make sense from our perspective. But we are in almost total ignorance about these issues. All we can say with certainty is that we don’t know

Biosemiosis inverts this framing. We are the machinery that can constrain the world to our own advantage.

Only in a very limited way. We are confined in the machine of the body with very little agency. Apart from a little bit I will call x.

We are modellers of the world for the purpose of regulating the world in a way that it must keep rebuilding and even replicating the delicate biological machine that is "us".

That’s not the we, the machine can do all that itself. We play no role in its development, or maintenance. Apart from a little bit I will call x.

Etc etc.

Consciousness boils down to the habit of predicting the state of the world in every next moment ... so as to be then capable of being surprised by what happens instead and thus learning to make better predictions the next time round.

It is the mind, facilitated by the brain that does all this. Perhaps what you mean by consciousness is self consciousness, which is where the mind becomes conscious of itself and becomes self reflective. This is not the root of consciousness, the root of consciousness was present in us long before we developed larger brains and became self conscious.

That self conscious being is little more than a toddler (who is concerned with x) compared to the complexity of the world and the body he or she finds themselves in.

And a strong sense of self emerges from this prediction-based processing. We know we are the "we" who generated a sense of a world as it was just about to be. Then we are still the "we" who has to halt and start again if the world glitched and we had to restart it from a refreshed point of view.

Again the “we” is not required to perform these tasks, the body can and does do it all by itself.

The Zen ideal for some reason. Sensory deprivation tanks cause the ego to dissolve. It is by having to push against the world that we also feel the us that is pushing. Once the world becomes fully ignorable, so also does our self-image lose its sturdy outline.

Leaving just the “we”. I know, I’ve been there.

What I’m getting at here is that as beings, people, personalities, self aware minds. We are babies, toddlers with a primary school level understanding ( x ) of the world we find ourselves in. We are doing well in our primary lessons. Working out things about the material of the world we find ourselves in. Even things about our own make up, biology psychology etc. But compared to the complexity of the world we find ourselves in, this is a tiny peek, a scratch on the surface of what’s going on. 99.99% of it we don’t have a clue about, or don’t even realise is there going on. And when it comes to why. Or how it came into existence, what mechanism, we don’t have a clue.

There are other approaches to knowledge about these things from religions and eastern philosophies. Which approach from a different perspective. Again we are toddlers.

I see this situation rather like a complex machine like what you describe, into which embryonic minds are introduced (implanted) (I will call these y ) to learn lessons, to grow and develop for some reason. Maybe to learn about good and evil, cooperation compassion. To have agency, to overcome the tendencies to succumb to base urges and desires, to be baby creators.

Now here’s the curious thing. My world and your world are identical, except for one thing, y.
I would suggest that a zombie world could be identical too.

At the end of the day, we don’t know which it is, or if it is something else entirely. We really are in the dark.

That’s the problem, you see, Catholicism. Maybe we could try Quakers, or Shakers. Although, I admit it might not translate well via the keyboard.

Each biblical reference here supports the methodological point that theology presupposes its conclusion.

Enjoying your dry wit by the way.
If you imagine that God does actually exist theology makes sense. Although as I was saying to Frank, Catholicism took its theologies too far. Where it became an apology for controlling populations.

By contrast, if you are of the opinion that God does not exist, then it’s all just pie in the sky.

So really we just need to settle the issue of whether there is a God first, then we can make progress.

I also think there are some interesting parallels to draw between the idea of living God's will with other concepts like living your Tao or other forms of enlightenment. I have seen some interpretations of hell as being bad not as a punishment so much as the natural state of being separated from God and his love/will, and because God is perfect, he cannot interact with imperfect beings directly, hence the necessity of Jesus as a sacrificial intermediary. In that reading, I think it's possible to see similarities, but perhaps I'm reaching.

We may already be in hell, earth may be hell. The spirit in each of us is separated by this heavy dense material substance that we wear like a straight jacket. Indeed we are imprisoned in this physical world. The only freedom we have is our imagination and our free will to live a good, or not so good a life.
I really enjoyed the works of C.S.lewis by the way.

Americans wouldn't have looked to the Pope for guidance. They were mostly Protestants

Then why all this focus on Catholicism?
All these doctrinal abominations you and Banno are going on about are just over reach in the Catholic Church. There are other religions and theologies.

Apokrisis’s explanation is effectively that the movement and life force we observe is like water flowing downhill. It doesn’t need an animating force, it naturally flows to the lowest point. The whole biosphere is just another cascade of entropy and once there is no gradient left, the world will return to stillness and we will be just ghosts.