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OMKensey t1_j3rvuhg wrote

I'm an amateur philosopher who has watched a lot of philosophy podcasts and so forth.

I tentatively think Russellian monoism / panpsychism is a good theory of consciousness. It recently occurred to me that, if Russellian monoism is correct, cosmology suggests there was an extremely high density of all of the universe's matter/consciousness at the time of the big bang expansion.

I don't know much about this density:

  1. All of the universe's consciousness condensed in one density prior to the big bang expansion.
  2. When the expansion happened, the consciousness spread out all over the place in space (and perhaps time).
  3. I don't know if the density has or had any will or caused the expansion.
  4. I have no reason to attribute moral attributes to the density.
  5. I don't know if the density had any knowledge (probably not much else going on for it to know about?).
  6. I don't know if the density had powers. Just a heck of a lot of consciousness.
  7. I don't know if the density or echoes of it continue to have any influence on our universe now.

Two questions:

A. I didn't previously consider myself a theist, but does this density qualify as a god?

B. Does anyone know of other people who went down the same line of thought and may have resources (papers, videos, whatever) that would address what I'm thinking? Does anyone know of a label for this line of thought? It seems sort of like a naturalistic pantheism perhaps?

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TheRealBeaker420 t1_j3sub0z wrote

> All of the universe's consciousness condensed in one density prior to the big bang expansion.

Do you think its experience would be in any way analogous to what we experience? There's no reason to think this entity would have biological sensations, like our experience of hunger, so it's unclear what we might meaningfully derive from this claim even if we accept it as true. As you pointed out, it just results in a lot of "I don't know"s.

> does this density qualify as a god?

Gods are usually described as intelligent beings that interact with humans somehow. I don't think the sort of information processing required for intelligence is possible here. There's also no evidence that it has any direct relationship with humans.

You might be able to simplify by appealing to a sort of deism, but IMHO that usually just ends up making it less godlike. Of course, it depends on how exactly you go about it. Here's an argument for atheism that I made a while back using similar terms. What qualities do you think such an entity might have that could make it worthy of the title "god"?

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OMKensey t1_j3t82t6 wrote

I agree with your entire post. A complete lack of sensory organs makes me question whether this conscious density would even know anything as you point out. And, most certainly, what it is like to be this density (its consciousness) would be nothing like ours. I'm not even sure it would have any higher order consciousness because there is not a brain network - - everything might be too dense for pathways.

I also don't think any current relationship with humans other than parts of it literally became us. But just miniscule parts.

On the other hand, it is all of the universe's consciousness condensed into a tiny point. That seems... interesting. But as you say it raises more questions than answers.

I also tend to think this probably wouldn't qualify as a god under most definitions, but I did want others' opinions.

It's a strange place for me to be: "Hi I'm atheist but I do give pretty high credence to this weird thing at the beginning of the universe."

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TheRealBeaker420 t1_j3tduhw wrote

Maybe a bit, but atheists come in all flavors, and can even be religious or spiritual. Other times it's basically just shorthand for being a religious skeptic. I even heard a pantheist claim to be an atheist once, which tbh felt a bit over the top. It's a pretty flexible term, though. I think either pantheism or deism are the appropriate terms for what you're describing, if you want to call it a god. If you don't then I wouldn't overcomplicate it.

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[deleted] t1_j468wp2 wrote

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OMKensey t1_j46f7jk wrote

I kind of like the notion of a God just accidentally creating worlds without even knowing it while just going on about its own business. That would make sense in some ways.

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[deleted] t1_j48n8e3 wrote

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OMKensey t1_j490w6f wrote

Your thoughts are not that far off from mine although we are arriving there from different angles. Also, I'm more hesitant to use the word God because it is so different than what people mean by "God" here in Texas.

But much respect for where you are coming from. We can both keep searching.

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