conciousness

Here is a link that I have been reading recently which is a well thought
through presentation of the mind-body problem (and therefore conciousness).
What I have read so far I have found very thought provoking and, even if you
disagree with his conclusions, you might find it helpful in considering the
problem. Guy
 
http://www.island.net/~dbruiger/toc.html
<http://www.island.net/~dbruiger/toc.html>

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
Behalf Of Don Winterstein
Sent: 18 March 2004 09:46
To: pruest@mysunrise.ch
Cc: Howard J. Van Till; asa
Subject: Re: creation through travail

Peter Ruest wrote:
 
 "I sympathize with your concept
of "partnering", although I don't yet see what it (and "collaboration")
would mean in this context or in the one of animal life."

 
Thanks for taking this seriously.
 
Yeah, God's spiritual interaction with animals, cells or molecules is
certain to be a stumbling block to hard-headed scientific types. But it's
not something I haven't given a lot of thought to. Fact is, no one knows
what consciousness is or where it comes from, so to say lots of entities
other than humans have it is something that science cannot disprove. David
Chalmers a number of years ago in a Scientific American article proposed
that consciousness is a fundamental, irreducible feature of reality, like
space-time. I like the idea and lean heavily on it.
 
Everything may be conscious at some level, but not everything gives evidence
of being so. Furthermore, we can say without fear of contradiction that
levels of consciousness vary greatly, even in humans who are known to be
conscious some of the time. In a long essay I wrote on this a few years
ago, I speculated that consciousness is highest in organisms that most
effectively unify the largest diversity of components, each of which has the
highest possible level of freedom. The organism's components have lower
levels of consciousness than the organism itself. When the organism
relaxes, it unifies its components less effectively than when it is alert,
so its consciousness diminishes and diffuses among its components.
 
A brief quote from my essay: "Let us postulate that the highest
consciousness results from the fullest possible unification of a great many
component parts of great diversity. Each component part has some level of
consciousness of its own that is lower than that of the unified being. The
level of consciousness of each part depends partly on the nature of its
interactions with other entities in its environment: From introspection I
judge that, if the interactions are conducive to freedom and spirituality,
consciousness is high; if not, it is low. Complex molecules moving
relatively freely in cell endoplasm among a great diversity of other
molecules have higher levels of consciousness than molecules immobilized by
rigid bonding in solids. Entities made of components with high levels of
consciousness have higher consciousness themselves than entities made of
less conscious components. Living cells consequently have higher
consciousness than comparably sized grains of rock."
 
This essay is included in my book. When a few of my atheist colleagues at
work read it, they all agreed that the book would have been better if I had
deleted this chapter. But I told them, "No way!" Without some such
concepts as these, I cannot account for my spiritual perceptions.
 
In mammals the brain presumably is what makes the high level of unification
of components possible.
 
Anyway, it's scientifically acceptable to assert that all creatures are
conscious at some level. It's theologically acceptable to assert that God
can interact spiritually with all creatures. But how does God interact with
creatures?
 
Back in November I wrote the following in response to something George
Murphy said: "Jesus as a man is the Word, but the Word is of no effect for
us without the Spirit. Likewise, the Spirit could not operate on us without
the Word. Both are essential." On contemplating this I started thinking
that maybe it applies universally. That is, not just to God's interactions
with humans but to his interactions with all creatures. The Word for
creatures would be evidences of God in nature. Creatures with low levels of
consciousness would have great difficulty perceiving the Word, so presumably
it would take a long time for God to get anywhere with them. With us at our
high levels of consciousness it should be relatively quick and easy for
God's creative power to work among us.
 
The crucial thing for creativity then is not travail per se but apprehension
of the Word. I called it "creation through travail" because I suppose
creatures as a rule are more likely to perceive the Word when they are in
crisis than when they are fat and happy.
 
The picture of God consistent with this model is that of a person who
doesn't arbitrarily impose his will on his creation but acts upon it when it
calls upon him. This picture of God meshes very well with my personal
perception of him, and the model of the creation as a thing that needs help
from time to time meshes very well with my perception of the world.
 
Don
 
 

----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Ruest <mailto:pruest@pop.mysunrise.ch>
To: Don <mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com> Winterstein
Cc: Howard J. Van Till <mailto:hvantill@sbcglobal.net> ; asa@calvin.edu
<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 9:51 PM
Subject: Re: creation through travail

Don Winterstein wrote:
> ... Actually, a robust world that could do it all on its =
> own would fit quite well into key elements of my personal theology, and =
> it's possible that one day I'll come to embrace that view. Right now, =
> though, I choke on it, and I can't really say why. It's just not how I =
> see either God or the world. =20

Like you, I feel like choking on Howard's RFEP, having both theological and
scientific problems with it. I have discussed this with him in PSCF and on
this list, but without our reaching any kind of agreement.
 
> My inability to accept your RFEP in no way detracts from my respect for =
> your use of it as a tool against materialists. =20
>
> HVT: a) Does your version of "interventionist" entail the idea that God =
> is both willing and able to act on the world in such a way as =
> occasionally to impose new forms on material systems, forms that the =
> universe was never (by divine choice, presumably) equipped to actualize? =
>
> DW: The universe of course was physically capable in principle but on =
> its own would not have done in a finite time.=20

This is also my conviction, based on the amount of functional information
contained in the biosphere - although I cannot prove it. I also have severe
objections to Howard's "and able" and his implication of a lack of
"equipment" of the creation should divine intervention happen.
 
> HVT: b) Do you envision the character of God and of God's relationship =
> to the universe to be such that God is both willing and able to =
> intervene on some occasions by directly re-arranging atoms and molecules =
> into new or different structures?
>
> DW: Perhaps my key thesis is that God acts on and through creatures =
> that "beg" him to act: creation through travail. All life forms =
> interact at some level with God all the time. A particular one may go =
> happily a million years but then confront a crisis. At that point the =
> life form cries out with groans too deep for words. God hears, and in =
> collaboration with the life form itself comes up with something new. (A =
> common alternative is extinction.) So yes, God can and does rearrange =
> the physical components, but in response to the creature's travail and =
> through its collaboration. I can imagine God punctuating the =
> equilibrium in this way, causing large changes over short times. =20

Thank you, Don - this is a very interesting idea! It is new to me, but looks
quite plausible theologically. I just read the book of Judges, where there
is a repeated history of Israel falling into idolatry, being subjugated by
some foreign nation, finally coming to repent, crying to the Lord and being
rescued again. Why did God leave them in their misery, sometimes for many
years? He wants to be asked for help. This seems to be the only way faith
can again be apprehended and be established.
 
> I think God's activities as described in the Bible involve the same kind =
> of dynamic. Even though God much of the time is portrayed as taking the =
> initiative, in reality it's the people's travail that he responds to. =
> In a sense it's the people who bring on the intervention. =20
>
> The more "intelligent" or spiritual the life form is, the more capable =
> it is of successfully interacting with God to make something new. So =
> that's why it took the one-celled plants & animals a few billion years =
> to get anywhere. =20

To extend this principle of God responding to creatures' travail is somewhat
more difficult to understand than in the case of humans, who obviously are
gifted with the special capacity of consciously turning to the Lord. But it
might resonate with Paul's saying about the creation's "groaning as in the
pains of childbirth" in Romans 8:22. But the "groans that words cannot
express" (v.26) - to which you seem to be referring above - appear,
according to the context, to be higher, not lower, than human language.

> As for bare molecules, it must have taken them longer still. That lends =
> plausibility to the idea that life originated outside our solar system =
> and was seeded on Earth by spores. =20

In the case of the molecules, at least for the moment, I prefer to think
rather in terms of God's deliberate fine-tuning of circumstances in the
origin and development of the earth and of life. Extraterrestrial spores had
to originate somewhere. Crick's panspermia hypothesis (Crick F.H.C. & Orgel
L.E., Icarus 19 (1973), 341-346) is apparently no longer taken to be a
serious option (Kerr R.A., "Rethinking water on Mars and the origin of
life", Science 292 (2001), 39-40). I think the little additional time and
space an extraterrestrial origin might perhaps provide couldn't help enough
to make a spontaneous origin of life sufficiently more probable to be worth
while considering.

> These ideas are less than half-baked. But if I expose them, maybe =
> someone will be able to run with them better than I, or give useful =
> feedback. Down deep some such mode of creation through travail appeals =
> to me in a way that no other scheme has yet done. God does not fiddle =
> with his world but partners with it. =20
>
> Don

I don't see God's intervention as "fiddling" at all - which sounds like lack
of knowledge, ability, or power. He certainly knows what He was doing,
throughout the history of the universe. But I sympathize with your concept
of "partnering", although I don't yet see what it (and "collaboration")
would mean in this context or in the one of animal life.

Peter

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
< pruest@dplanet.ch <mailto:pruest@dplanet.ch> > - Biochemistry - Creation
and evolution
"..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)