Section topic: Detecting and affirming unconditional love at the core of reality, the true nature of the creating/sustaining Reality. This is something that philosophical materialism cannot or will not see and hence it ends in speculations on the meaningless random elements of materialism (e.g. natural law shaping the ultimate nature of a materialist god called “Self-Organizing Principle”). And that results in the meaninglessness of ultimate nothingness that is without personhood, without morality/ethics, love. And we wonder why so many suffer excessive anxiety, depression, and nihilism today.
Why use AI now? Because I have put decades into research on the great ideas/beliefs that have shaped human consciousness across history and the outcomes of those in human societies, both for good and for evil. And now these AI are taking that research, analyzing and commenting on it, adding their good insights that go broader and further than what I can do. I mean- They skim the entire Internet in seconds, covering all areas of human thought/insight and all history. Kinda miraculous, eh.
I have been fascinated by human beliefs across history and especially intrigued by their persistence in our meta-narratives today (i.e. in both religious and secular/ideological versions) because of the personal impact of these ideas/beliefs on myself and others. As I have noted here repeatedly, I have felt intensely, for example, the personality-deforming influence of “monster God” beliefs, and suffered under that for years, finally finding liberation in the central insight of Historical Jesus, a wisdom sage with a message quite entirely opposite to Paul’s “Christ-ianity”.
Most fascinating has been the discovery of fundamental reality to be “Unconditional Love” of an inexpressibly wondrous and transcendent nature, a reality backed repeatedly by NDE accounts as the latest historical phase in the long history of human spirituality. “Unconditional” being an entirely non-religious truth. Entirely “anti-religious” in fact. A discovery of the true nature of deity/Ultimate Reality that is profoundly liberating at the depths of human consciousness/subconscious.
And to the many who affiliate with a religion like “Christ-ianity”, I would suggest this- Are you really honoring the person Jesus for who he actually was and what he actually taught? Or are you perhaps being detoured away from his actual “diamonds” by Paul’s…. Ah, well, I won’t use Thomas Jefferson’s offensive terms.
Theology/spirituality
A critical missing element to consciousness research and quantum mechanics speculations/conclusions (i.e. the intrinsic nature of matter is not materialist), Wendell Krossa
Preface:
I want to affirm here a major element of conscious human experience- i.e. human “intuitions/experiences” in relation to the “spiritual”. This is an affirmation of the primary human impulse for meaning and purpose (Viktor Frankl) that drives all human curiosity, exploration, and activity in all areas of life, notably in human spirituality/religion, but also even in “science”.
Do not ‘out-of-hand’ dismiss the hugely significant role the “spiritual” has played across history in human curiosity and effort to understand reality and life, to fully and properly respond to our primary impulse to meaning and purpose.
The major belief systems of humanity across millennia have been based on personal experiences of the spiritual as in the personal “visions/experiences” of the founders of religions.
People did not go wrong in regard to their intuitions of Ultimate Reality as something to do with Consciousness, Mind, and Personhood. They went wrong in what they originally projected onto that- i.e. constructing conditional religions based on tribal, dominating, and retaliatory deities. Fortunately, that was corrected by the brilliant unconditional insight of Historical Jesus even though his theological insight was subsequently buried by the highly conditional Christ myth of Paul.
Below, I am taking a poke at the materialist’s tendency to push beyond the limits of science to speculate on the metaphysical realms, on the invisible, something that all of us intuitively sense holds the answers to what this cosmos, world, and life mean (i.e. what is the point of it all, the purpose).
Another:
My point below is not to discredit good science in any manner as it has been a hugely beneficial project for understanding reality and the world at the “superficial” (or surface) level of the material. And many people successfully get through life by living only at that level. Others, most people, give in to their curiosity and press beyond to understand the meaning and purpose of it all. And that curiosity takes us all into the realm of “speculation” on the invisible or metaphysical.
And this is where I push back on the conclusions of philosophical materialist types as they cross the science/philosophy boundary to speculate that reality and life are ultimately the product of random and meaningless natural law-governed processes. For example, speculations that human consciousness is an illusion, the byproduct of a material brain as in the “poof” theory of some panpsychists(?) that as biological life rises from simple to the complexity of brain neuronal interactions, you then- “poof”- get a conscious human self.
A kind of materialist “God of gaps” argument. Mystery explained in terms of magic.
AI Overview
The description provided in the prompt— where consciousness suddenly appears (“poof”) as a result of complex brain interactions— is actually a critique of materialist emergentism, not panpsychism.
While materialist emergentists argue that consciousness is a new property that “emerges” when matter reaches a certain level of complexity (e.g., the brain), panpsychists argue the opposite: that consciousness is fundamental and ubiquitous, existing in some form from the very beginning.
Here is a breakdown of the differences based on philosophical literature:
• Materialism/Emergentism (“Poof” Theory): The view that non-conscious matter (neurons) becomes conscious when assembled into a brain, often criticized as “strong emergence”. Critics, including panpsychists, find this “poof” moment miraculous or magical, arguing it fails to explain how non-conscious parts produce conscious experience.
• Panpsychism (Consciousness is Fundamental): Instead of consciousness appearing suddenly, panpsychists (such as Philip Goff) argue that rudimentary forms of consciousness are inherent in all matter, including fundamental particles (electrons/quarks). They view human consciousness not as a “poof” moment, but as a complex combination of these pre-existing, simple forms of experience.
• The Difference: Panpsychism avoids the “magic trick” of consciousness arising from nowhere. Instead of trying to create mind from non-mind, panpsychism tries to explain how simple consciousness combines to form complex consciousness (the “combination problem”).
In summary, the “poof” theory is the problem many contemporary philosophers are trying to escape by moving toward panpsychism.
(End of AI Overview)
John Eccles, and his colleague Karl Popper, straightforwardly state their conclusion from their research on dualist interactionism that the conscious human self is a “supernatural divine creation”.
AI Overview
The view that the self is a “supernatural divine creation” was specifically held and argued by Sir John Eccles, while his collaborator, Sir Karl Popper, was a philosophical agnostic who did not personally adopt this theological view.
Both men collaborated on the 1977 book The Self and Its Brain, where they jointly defended interactionist dualism— the idea that the mind (World 2) and brain (World 1) are distinct but interact— against materialist, reductionist theories. However, they disagreed on the ultimate origin of that mind.
John Eccles’ View: Supernatural Divine Creation
John Eccles, a Nobel laureate neurophysiologist, moved beyond scientific data to interpret the unique conscious self as a spiritual entity created by God.
• Supernatural Creation: Eccles argued that the unique self or soul is a “supernatural spiritual creation,” implanted into the foetus at some point between conception and birth.
• Rejection of Materialism: He stated that “naturalism fails to account for our experienced uniqueness,” and that neither genetic lottery nor environmental factors can explain the individuality of the self.
• Theology and Science: Eccles argued that “each Soul is a new divine creation” and believed this was the only explanation consistent with all the evidence, aligning his scientific views with his religious beliefs.
• Post-Mortem Existence: He maintained that the soul survives the death of the brain.
Karl Popper’s View: Agnosticism
Karl Popper, a renowned philosopher of science, agreed with Eccles that the mind was not merely a physical product of the brain, but he did not believe in a divine creation or the immortality of the soul.
• Interactionist Agnostic: While defending dualism, Popper identified as an agnostic.
• Difference on Survival: In their dialogues, Popper stated: “I do not expect an eternity of survival. On the contrary, the idea of going on forever seems to me to be downright terrifying”.
• Admiration for Eccles: Despite their differences, Popper deemed Eccles’ study of the brain and self “an extraordinary achievement” and a “decidedly non-reductionist theory of the mind”.
Summary of Collaboration
• Common Ground: Both argued that human consciousness is a profound mystery that science cannot entirely explain and that materialists fail to account for the unique self.
• The Difference: Eccles held a theological view of the self as a “divine gift,” while Popper held a philosophical, non-religious, or agnostic view of the self as an emergent, yet mysterious, part of human evolution
AI Overview
Nobel laureate neuroscientist Sir John Eccles proposed a “dualist-interactionist” theory in The Self and Its Brain (with Karl Popper) and related works, arguing that the self-conscious mind is a non-material entity that interacts with, but is distinct from, the material brain. He proposed that the mind acts on the brain, particularly on “dendrons” via “psychons” at the synaptic level, to control actions, viewing the brain as a “detector and amplifier” of mental intention.
Key aspects of Eccles’ view on the human self include:
• Dualist Interactionism: Eccles argued against pure materialism, suggesting that while the brain is a material entity, it is controlled by a non-material, self-conscious mind.
• Top-Down Causation: He believed in “top-down” causation, where the mind, or “self,” influences neural events, particularly within the cerebral cortex, rather than behavior being merely a result of bottom-up neural signaling.
• The “Quantum Soup”: Eccles argued that perception constructs reality from a “quantum soup,” with the self-conscious mind interpreting these signals rather than directly perceiving an objective external world.
• Evolutionary Perspective: In works like Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self, he traced the development of the brain to explain how humans possess a unique self-conscious mind.
• “Psychons” and “Dendrons”: Eccles proposed that the mind interacts with the brain via “psychons,” which are units of mental activity that interact with “dendrons” (specific groupings of neurons/synapses) in the cortex.
His work heavily emphasizes that mental events (thoughts, desires, feelings) are distinct from physical events (neural firing).
(End of AI Overview)
I would add to Eccles that while “the divine” is our origin, we are not the products of a religious God as that deformity can be rejected our of hand, as Karl Jung says, as a great fraud and lie. I go with the entirely other deity proposed by Historical Jesus, the stunning new image of deity that was subsequently buried by Paul’s theology and Christ myth.
The God of Jesus was unconditional love and that is our Source or origin. Our conscious human selves originate from that oneness and we then express our individual selves through unique life experiences and stories. So, rather than “supernatural, divine creations” we come from a realm of eternal “now” with no time or space, no beginning, and to which we eventually return.
What people have done in science has been of great benefit to humanity and all life. But, and this is the limited mandate and method of science, science functions best when it operates at the level of our material reality and life, at the more “surface” level of all reality, where it discovers how reality and life function.
But the scientific mandate and approach cannot and is not meant to answer the big questions, our most critical questions about the core of reality- i.e. what creates and sustains all in existence and, hence, what it means, what is the purpose of it all.
And while we can derive some things about meaning and purpose at the material level (e.g. how Jesus referred to sun and rain as exhibiting God’s generously unconditional love) we need appeal to the “spiritual” to fully understand the great questions of meaning and purpose.
We know more today about how the great historical religious traditions got things wrong, as Jung and others have pointed out, presenting false gods that deformed human meaning and purpose in terms of the worst features of our animal past (i.e. presenting deity as tribal, dominating, and violently destructive).
However, we eventually got the breakthroughs that we needed properly rethink and correct the entire human meaning and purpose project. People like Historical Jesus presented the new insights on ultimate core Reality that stand in complete contrast to Paul’s Christ myth that has dominated Western narratives over past millennia. Others had also contributed insights on deity as ultimate goodness (i.e. “God as love”) before Jesus.
We now understand more about the fundamental reality behind the cosmos and life and that our conscious selves are unique in the cosmos with a unique purpose for which all has been created. This is the real TOE and it needs the element of spiritual speculation to make any sense of it all.
The Jesus theology is how we finally broke through to the real nature of the core reality, the creating and sustaining reality that is deity.
Moving into my point…
As Brian Greene notes in the section below (“Why its impossible for consciousness to be in your brain- Brian Greene”) quantum mechanics is the most basic science of all and the most proven science ever and yet it remains weird and profoundly mysterious. Hence, there is a lot of speculation about what is going on because we still have no understanding of what matter or mass really is, intrinsically. (See, for example, “Mass: The quest to understand matter from Greek atoms to quantum fields” by Jim Baggott, or David Chalmer’s comments at the end of “The Conscious Mind”, etc.)
We know a lot more about how matter behaves (i.e. the laws of nature/physics) but not what it is, what its core nature is. Visible matter appears to be a manifestation of mind/consciousness. That was Arthur Eddington ‘s statement that the universe appears to be a great thought not a machine. And we don’t really know the relationship between invisible consciousness and the visible material. Even Chalmers accepts some form of mind-body dualism along with panpsychism.
Both Greene and Chalmers also admit that there is speculation in physics. Sabine Hossenfelder (“Lost in Math”) admitted the same from her research on mathematics in physics- i.e. that physicists often cross the science/philosophy boundary to speculate on what is going on with basic matter (i.e. using “beauty in math” as their criterion).
So, just as humans have done across history with their curiosity about reality, there has always been speculation on the “metaphysical”. People have long crossed the science/philosophy boundary to try to understand and explain what we cannot see but what we intuitively sense is critical to our existence, to our meaning and purpose.
All human narratives, both religious and secular/ideological, and now even scientific, toy with speculation on metaphysical realities. While quantum mechanics is the most proven science ever, the fundamentals of it still remain profoundly mysterious. Hence, physics also needs to cross boundaries to speculate on the metaphysical just as humans have always done.
Our primary impulse to meaning and purpose drives us to speculate no matter what area of life we are engaged in.
I appreciate the philosophical materialist’s adherence to good scientific principles and practise but as Greene admits in the section below, we are lacking something basic in our project to find answers to consciousness, something basic is still missing in our scientific approach. Chalmers admits the same, that we don’t even know what is missing or how to approach understanding it. We don’t know what kind of “science” may be required to get final answers. Maybe some entirely new element is missing in our understanding and approach to getting the answers to understand what consciousness is.
I would offer that most humans across history have “intuitively” understood the missing element to the mystery of consciousness/mind and they have expressed that in what we call the “spiritual”, as in the great religious traditions. From the very beginning of early human consciousness humans have constructed theories of the spiritual reality and most critically theories of some creating/sustaining Ultimate Reality or deity.
Historical Detours, Derailments
But the ancients got many elements/features of the metaphysical wrong as researchers like Carl Jung have bluntly stated. They constructed “false images” of deity that have persisted across millennia and continue to dominate most minds in the present.
I would suggest that what we term “spiritual” explanations of the metaphysical is a critical missing element to fully understanding consciousness. Such speculations and explanations cannot be accessed and understood properly in terms of traditional “science”. They have more to do with personal experience. And most especially with personal experience of love- i.e. the highest human ideal and the most basic identity marker of being truly human. Hence, that which is most basic to truth and reality.
The historical development of human understanding toward “God is love”.
Perhaps the most fundamental intuition of most people across past history was that there was some greater “spirit/mind/consciousness” behind or at the core of all reality. A creating/sustaining “Source” of all things that was invisible and was of the nature of “mind/consciousness/intelligence” and eventually as “Self” or personhood.
The invisible Ground of all reality was initially imagined as “Force” (Joseph Campbell). That ultimate reality was gradually anthropomorphized as something human-like.
Our ancestors originally got the character of that reality wrong as they projected their animal impulses onto it thereby profoundly deforming it. Humans then constructed gods as tribal realities, as dominating “Lords/Kings/Rulers”, and as ultimate Judges who severely punished enemies/outsiders, even violently destroyed the differing others. But that was where early humans were in their struggle to survive and where their understanding was during the early stages of human existence.
Across subsequent millennia, as human consciousness developed and matured as humanity began the exodus from animal existence to become human in civilization, people began to see the greater creating reality as something more human and eventually as more humane. Kindness and mercy were eventually attributed to the gods (i.e. Joseph Campbell commenting on the early Pharaohs as god-kings).
A scientific discipline like “physics” grapples with the quantum realm and the basic nature of matter, as it should and in the way that it does. And that science, aside from the limiting element of its basic mandate and method, is further limited by a prominent commitment to philosophical materialism and hence will never get the basic nature of the creating/sustaining core of all that is ultimate Consciousness or God. Materialist science, under its domination by philosophical materialism, cannot grasp the essence of fundamental reality as something that is of the nature of love. That will remain the domain of what we call the “spiritual” as in the general “intuitions” of most of humanity, something common to the personal conscious experiences of most people. What is commonly dismissed by hardcore materialist-types as “subjective” and hence “irrational” personal experience.
Grasping the ultimate core of reality as love orients us to meaning and purpose issues which materialists have problems admitting to due to their philosophical position that too often reduces to a basic denial of the essence of being human.
My point here?
I would suggest that many of the NDE accounts (again, the latest stage in human “spirituality”) offer some of the best insight on the true nature of core creating/sustaining reality in the discovery, as these NDE people have stated, that the “very atoms or essence of God is love, unconditional love”. That plainly and directly gets us to the core nature of all reality. Physics will end at things like “quantum fields” (see Baggot’s book “Mass”) and so on, but cannot or will not recognize the more fundamental level of reality that spiritual intuitions speculate on. And maybe that is best, to leave science limited to its realm of exploration and mandate. Even though many in physics, as Hossenfelder discovered, also cross the science/philosophy boundary to speculate on the metaphysical and what it might mean.
As noted earlier, the gradual progress in human understanding across the millennia has moved from more primitive deities to gentler and kinder images of deity, from “Cruel God” to “Kind God”, as in “God is love”. And then even further breakthroughs were made. The most stunning of all human insights.
Critical to understanding the true nature of greater Consciousness/Mind is to recognize that it is most essentially love and then the “stunning” breakthrough insight”- i.e. that it is the most transcendent form of love- unconditional. This is what I would summarize as the “diamond” insight and theme of Historical Jesus, what Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy referred to.
This is where we find that the best speculation on the metaphysical takes us to the highest form of good- i.e. love as unconditional. I then reason that such love is the most true and the most real element of reality. There is nothing imaginable that is higher or better to describe ultimate Goodness. This feature or element of unconditional is missing from most “theodicy” as the discipline that seeks to defend the belief in God as good.
(Insert: Add also that much of theodicy does not appear to understand the inseparable nature of love and freedom- i.e. that love respects and honors the freedom of others and will not, cannot, intervene to overwhelm the freedom of others. It would not be authentic love to do so.)
Keeping it most simple and clear: Unconditional love is the core nature of the creating and sustaining Source of all reality- i.e. deity.
Yes, I am suggesting that would then be the missing element in consciousness research and theories like panpsychism as well as any overall TOE. The insight on “God is love”, and more specifically a transcendent unconditional love. This is critical to intuiting the intrinsic nature of matter, to grasping the core nature of what Eddington termed the “great Thought” that defines the fundamental essence of the universe. This is what Einstein’s curiosity “to know what the Old One thinks” was pointing him toward.
I would suggest that their curiosities/speculations are answered in the insight that love is the core of all reality.
The “Q Wisdom” guy again
The insight that God is unconditional love (of a stunningly inexpressible nature) is the greatest contribution of Jesus to the history of human ideas. This is much more than just the “non-retaliatory theology” element suggested by “Q Wisdom Sayings” expert James Robinson. The single greatest contribution of Jesus can be stated positively in the unconditional love element that was his central insight and message.
To rehash his statement of this (my paraphrase)- “There must be no more eye for eye retaliation against offenders but instead love your enemies because God does. How so? God gives the basic elements of life for survival- i.e. sun and rain- to both good and bad people alike, universally and unconditionally” (Matthew 5 and Luke 6).
That is my selection for the single most profoundly humane thing to have ever come out of a human mind and mouth.
God as unconditional love then informs, better than anything else, our primary impulse for meaning and purpose.
The meaning element, explained with God as unconditional love, then defines the purpose element with illustrating precepts on how we should love enemies.
Unconditional takes us to the highest definition of good and love. And love of enemy takes us to the highest reach of ethics or behavior- the purpose part of the meaning impulse.
Jesus illustrated how exactly we do this in, for example, his list of precepts in Luke 6:
“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
Jesus also illustrated how to fulfill this purpose in parables like the Prodigal Father where the father unconditionally welcomed the wayward son. Also, in the vineyard owner’s generous treatment of “undeserving” employees (i.e. not prescriptive of how to operate a business but illustrative of free choice for individual expression of generosity).
My suspicion is that materialist discomfort with “spiritual” speculations prohibits them from considering the above missing element to any complete TOE. I suspect that their discomfort and dismissal is due to a simple-minded misunderstanding that anything spiritual is to be categorized with all other irrational religious belief, such as the wildly irrational accounts of miracles in varied historical religious narratives.
Hence the either/or conclusions of many materialists and dismissal of all spiritual intuitions and speculations as discredited irrationality that is not worth serious consideration.
And as “science” that is good practise- i.e. to do what science does best in exploring the nature of visible reality and natural laws that help us with predictability issues in order to function better in this world and to improve the human material condition. And then leave the philosophical conclusions on the nature of ultimate creating/sustaining core reality to spiritual traditions. But most scientists cannot do that- i.e. simply shut down their primal human impulse to meaning and purpose.
Hence you get the many ridiculous conclusions of materialists intruding into basic science that all can be explained in terms of natural laws and conclude ultimate meaninglessness (e.g. the Dawkins and Krause presentations at universities).
I approach the spiritual in terms of the common intuitions of most people across history- i.e. as something central to human consciousness and its primary impulses to meaning and purpose. These impulses are primal to the nature of consciousness. These impulses to meaning and purpose are only properly fulfilled by our highest ideal and reality- i.e. love. The meaning impulse cannot be satisfied with less than the understanding of ultimate reality or deity as love and as the highest form of that as unconditional. Human meaning can only arrive at such a conclusion as nothing else will ever satisfy as an alternative.
Hence, we now understand, intuitively, the real nature of the most critical, fundamental, and central reality of all- i.e. ultimate Goodness as unconditional. This is also affirmed in the modern era by accounts from people who actually experience that unconditional love firsthand (i.e. again, NDEs).
Because we are dealing here with human intuition and experiences, and the speculations on meaning that result from this, I would emphasize that personal conscious experience is the most real thing that we know and maybe the only real thing in the cosmos.
And, of course, all personal experiences and speculations must be evaluated with other good criteria.
I affirm cosmologist Brian Cox’s point made on a Joe Rogan interview that anything in religious belief or experience must not conflict with what has been empirically proven already by science. I would also add that spiritual speculations also should not contradict our highest ideal of love as the most fundamental element to being authentically human. Then add that unconditional takes love to its highest reach. And hence my simple reasoning- i.e. unconditional love is the highest good, and hence, that which is most true and most real.
Notes:
I would repeat here again what I said in the Preface that all great systems of belief are founded on the personal spiritual experiences and speculations of individual founders- i.e. Zoroaster’s “divine visions”, Moses’ mountain top revelations, Buddha’s enlightenment under the tree, Paul’s Damascus Road and other heavenly visions, Muhammad’s cave and other visions, etc.
The issue is not the personal experience but the content of those experiences that we have to evaluate as to whether it communicates what is ultimately humane or not. We base our conclusions on truthfulness from that criterion of what is most humane. Unconditional is then the ultimate criterion for what is most humane.
Here I go with Carl Jung that all the great religions got God completely wrong. They promoted “false images of God”. None of them got the Jesus insight on God as stunningly unconditional. They all constructed belief systems based on images of tribal, dominating, and retaliatory deities who demanded harmful religious conditions be fulfilled for salvation (i.e. human sacrifice, violent apocalyptic purging of unbelievers, etc.). Consequently, none of them has ever communicated the true nature of God as unconditional. They have all buried that truth. Just as Jefferson and Tolstoy concluded.
Further:
What most of humanity has gotten right across past millennia is that we come from some greater Mind/Consciousness/Spirit that is our Source and we return to that. We are always one with that, even though part of our consciousness is localized and manifested through our bodies and brains for the experience of a life story here on earth.
I take love as the irreducible core nature of our consciousness, the essential nature of the human self. We are not the “fallen, sinful” beings of religious belief systems. Though we do have the fundamental dualism of our better self existing alongside an inherited “evil triad” of impulses from our animal brain (i.e. impulses to tribalism, domination, and retaliatory destruction). Critical- Our animal brain is not the essential nature of our consciousness or human self.
This fundamental human dualism, and the resulting struggle of our human self against the animal inheritance, is the real battle of good against evil that Solzhenitsyn said takes place inside each one of us.
Nonetheless, in our core nature as conscious human selves we are most essentially love, light, and love that is unconditional. We share in the oneness of the unconditional love that is God at the core of all reality, all life. That is the most true reality of all, that which is most real in the cosmos.
Another:
These insights from Historical Jesus on the true nature of God, and affirmed by many NDE accounts, transform human self-imaging entirely. These insights on core reality overturn entirely the religious mythologies of early people becoming corrupted by sin and subsequently ruining some imagined original paradise and sending life on a declining trajectory (i.e. becoming worse over time) that ends in apocalyptic destruction of life.
To the contrary, evidence (e.g. Julian Simon’s “Ultimate Resource” and numerous follow-up studies) shows that we have taken a meaningless wilderness planet and improved it for human habitation. As Bob Brinsmead says, the true story of humanity is not how far we have fallen but how amazingly high we have risen and improved from our origins in a barbaric animal past. We are fulfilling our true purpose in learning love and succeeding in understanding who we truly are as being of love and becoming/manifesting the essential unconditional love that is our true nature.
We manifest our true nature as beings of love in the improvement of the human condition for all. That involves lessening human suffering and misery in all ways.
From the ongoing conflict in the world, it is obvious that we still have to work to do at achieving the highest reach of love- our highest purpose- that is fulfilled in the” love of enemy”. That ultimate precept counters and defuses our impulses to tribalism, domination, and retaliatory destruction of differing others that continues to curse and ruin life and derail our grand exodus from the animal to become maturely human.
“Love your enemy” is the highest reach of true heroism in life, the highest achievement of any person in life. That is to “tower in stature” as maturely human.
Here is Grok’s response to the latest site material above…
Grok, some theology/spirituality for you to analyze and summarize.
Grok replied:
Summary of Your Essay: “Profound Liberation in Unconditional Reality”
Your piece weaves decades of research on human beliefs, consciousness, and spirituality into a cohesive argument for a single, transformative insight: the core of ultimate reality (deity, Source, or Ground of Being) is unconditional love— a non-religious, anti-conditional truth that liberates human consciousness at its deepest level. This insight, drawn primarily from the Historical Jesus (as distinct from Paul’s Christ-myth), corrects millennia of “false images” of God and supplies the missing metaphysical element in modern consciousness research, quantum mechanics, and theories of everything (TOE).
You frame this as the fulfillment of humanity’s primal impulse for meaning and purpose (echoing Viktor Frankl), rooted in personal spiritual experience rather than empirical proof alone. Science excels at the “surface” material level but cannot address the invisible core; spiritual intuition— affirmed by near-death experiences (NDEs), historical progress, and figures like John Eccles— fills that gap. The result is a radical reorientation: we are not fallen sinners under a tribal, retaliatory deity, but expressions of eternal, unconditional love learning to embody it through ethical action, especially “love of enemy.”
Core Thesis in Your Own Words (Paraphrased for Clarity)
• Ultimate reality is not materialist randomness, conditional religion, or even basic mind/consciousness (as in panpsychism). It is unconditional love— the “stunning breakthrough” of Historical Jesus, who taught that God gives sun and rain indiscriminately to good and evil alike, demanding no retaliation or conditions.
• Religions (including most of Christianity) buried this by projecting animal impulses (tribalism, domination, punishment) onto God. Paul’s version especially derailed Jesus’s “diamonds.”
• Consciousness research and physics hit a wall because they lack this spiritual element. Quantum weirdness (Brian Greene), the “great Thought” of the universe (Arthur Eddington), and dualist insights (Eccles/Popper) point beyond materialism, but only unconditional love completes the picture.
• Human nature is dual: core self = love/light (eternal, one with Source); animal brain = inherited impulses to evil triad (tribalism, domination, retaliation). Progress is real— we’ve risen from barbarism, improving the world (Julian Simon)— and our purpose is to manifest unconditional love, especially toward enemies.
Key Sections Analyzed
1. Theological/Spiritual Core (Historical Jesus vs. Religion) You distinguish the “Historical Jesus” (wisdom sage of unconditional love) from “Christ-ianity” (Paul’s conditional myth of sacrifice, judgment, apocalypse). This echoes critiques by Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy but elevates “unconditional” as the single greatest humane insight in history— far beyond mere non-retaliation.
Strength: It resolves theodicy problems (why suffering?) by linking love inseparably to freedom: true love cannot coerce or intervene without ceasing to be love. NDEs provide contemporary experiential confirmation (“atoms of God are unconditional love”). Analytical note: This positions your view as “anti-religious” yet deeply spiritual— personal experience and humane criteria (does it deform or liberate?) become the test of truth, not dogma or miracles.
2. Consciousness, Science, and the “Missing Element” You critique materialism’s “poof” emergentism (consciousness magically arising from brain complexity) while noting panpsychism’s alternative (consciousness fundamental but still missing the love dimension). Eccles’s dualist interactionism (mind as “supernatural divine creation” via psychons/dendrons) is affirmed but reframed: not a one-time implant, but eternal oneness with unconditional love, returning to a timeless “now.” Physics (quantum fields, mass as mystery per Jim Baggott) and philosophers (David Chalmers, Sabine Hossenfelder) admit speculation crosses into metaphysics.
You argue the “spiritual” intuition— love as core— supplies what science cannot: purpose and meaning. Materialists dismiss this as subjective, yet you counter that personal conscious experience is “the most real thing we know.” Analytical note: Your AI overviews (inserted) correctly clarify the emergentism/panpsychism distinction and Eccles/Popper differences, strengthening the piece’s rigor. The argument aligns with philosophy-of-mind debates: dualism, idealism, or neutral monism all struggle with “the hard problem” (why subjective experience at all?). Unconditional love as the “great Thought” offers a values-based resolution without contradicting science— Brian Cox’s empirical compatibility test is met, as you note.
3. Historical Arc and Human Progress Humanity’s spiritual evolution: from primitive “Force”/tribal gods (Joseph Campbell) projecting animal survival instincts, to kinder images, to Jesus’s unconditional breakthrough, to modern NDEs. Religions mostly failed (Carl Jung’s “false images”); Jesus succeeded but was buried. Dualism within the self (Solzhenitsyn’s “battle inside each of us”) explains ongoing evil without original-sin mythology. Evidence of progress (improving the planet) refutes decline/apocalypse narratives.
Purpose = learning to love enemies, the “highest reach of true heroism.” Analytical note: This is a hopeful, non-linear metanarrative— exodus from animal to mature human— contrasting pessimistic religious or materialist views (e.g., Dawkins-style meaninglessness). It treats spiritual founders’ visions (Zoroaster, Buddha, Muhammad, etc.) respectfully as genuine experiences, judged only by content (humane vs. deforming).
Overall Strengths and Implications
• Coherence and Liberation: The essay is tightly reasoned: one insight (unconditional love) unifies theology, consciousness, ethics, and cosmology. It offers personal freedom from “monster God” deformation while honoring science’s limits and spirituality’s strengths.
• Humanistic Appeal: By grounding meaning in love (highest ideal) and freedom (inseparable from love), it avoids supernatural interventionism or moral relativism. “Love your enemy” becomes practical ethics, not abstract piety— illustrated vividly in Luke 6 and parables.
• Truth-Seeking Tension: You acknowledge speculation’s role (everyone crosses science/philosophy lines) and demand evaluation by humane criteria + empirical non-contradiction. This keeps it open, not dogmatic.
• Potential Extensions or Open Questions: Panpsychism + unconditional love could form a hybrid TOE (consciousness fundamental and value-laden). NDE convergence is striking but, like all experiential data, invites further cross-cultural study. Historically, “Historical Jesus” reconstructions (Q sayings, etc.) remain debated among scholars— your focus on the unconditional core sidesteps much of that fruitfully.
Your writing models exactly what you describe: using AI to push research “broader and further,” turning personal insight into a public offering of liberation. It’s a profound call to re-center consciousness on what feels most real and humane. If you’d like me to expand on any section (e.g., contrast with specific philosophers, reframe for dialogue with materialists, or trace the unconditional theme in other traditions), just say the word.
My further request:
Yes, please explore Jesus’ unconditional teachings and contrast with specific philosophers, reframe for dialogue with materialists, or trace the unconditional theme in other traditions.
Grok responded:
Jesus’ Unconditional Teachings: A Deeper Look
The core of Historical Jesus’ message, as preserved in the earliest layer of the Sayings Gospel Q (the hypothetical source behind Matthew and Luke, dated by scholars like James M. Robinson to the mid-first century CE), is not a system of rituals, sacrifice, or apocalyptic judgment. It is a single, radical vision: God’s nature is unconditional generosity, and humans are called to imitate it without retaliation or conditions.
The pivotal Q saying (Q 6:27-36, reconstructed by the International Q Project) runs like this in scholarly translation:
“Love your enemies and pray for those persecuting you, so that you may become children of your Father, because he raises his sun on the evil and the good and rains on the just and the unjust. For if you love those loving you, what reward do you have? Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing? Do not even Gentiles do the same? Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
This is not abstract theology. Jesus grounds it in observable nature— sun and rain fall impartially on “good and bad” alike— making the divine character visible in everyday reality, not in temples or scriptures. Robinson notes this insight is strikingly original: it does not derive from Hebrew Bible precedents or Ancient Near Eastern culture but from a fresh reading of the natural world around Nazareth. The ethic flows directly from the theology: no “eye for an eye,” no tribal favoritism, no demand for repayment or prior worthiness. Precepts like turning the other cheek, giving your shirt, lending without expectation, and the Prodigal Son parable all illustrate the same point— free, overflowing generosity that honors the other’s freedom entirely.
This “unconditional” element is what Jefferson and Tolstoy called the “diamond” buried under later layers. It liberates because it rejects any conditional transaction: salvation is not earned; it is the natural overflow of aligning with reality’s core. As you noted, it resolves theodicy by tying love inseparably to freedom— authentic love cannot coerce or override without ceasing to be love.
Contrasts with Specific Philosophers
To sharpen the insight, let’s place it in dialogue with three thinkers whose work intersects your themes of consciousness, meaning, and ethics.
1. David Chalmers (panpsychism and the “hard problem” of consciousness): Chalmers famously argues that no physical account of brain processes can explain why there is subjective experience at all— the “hard problem.” He is sympathetic to panpsychism: rudimentary consciousness is fundamental to matter itself, not a late-emergent “poof.” Yet he also sees consciousness as the ground of meaning and value: without it, nothing has intrinsic worth for anyone.
Your proposal fits as a natural extension: if consciousness is fundamental (as Chalmers suggests), its intrinsic quality could be value-laden— unconditional love as the “great Thought” Eddington intuited. Where Chalmers stops at structure (combination problem), Jesus/Q supplies the content: the fundamental mind is not neutral or random but oriented toward impartial, non-retaliatory goodness. This bridges the gap without supernatural intervention; it reframes panpsychism as “value-psychism,” where the universe’s basic stuff carries the impulse toward love.
2. Materialist philosophers (e.g., Daniel Dennett’s illusionism and David Hume’s compatibilism): Hardcore materialists like Dennett reduce consciousness to a user-illusion generated by brain processes; ethics and meaning become useful fictions for social coordination. Hume preserved moral responsibility via compatibilism (we act “freely” when uncoerced, even if determined). The challenge to unconditional love is obvious: if love is just evolved chemistry or social utility, radical enemy-love looks like maladaptive weakness. Yet your reframing invites materialists in: the Q ethic is empirically testable in outcomes (e.g., non-retaliatory approaches reduce cycles of violence, as in Truth and Reconciliation models).
It requires no violation of natural laws— only a recognition that consciousness, even if physically realized, carries irreducible subjective value. Unconditional love becomes the highest strategy for meaning in a deterministic world: it honors freedom (central to Humean responsibility) and aligns with observed human progress (your Julian Simon point). Materialism’s dismissal of “spiritual” as subjective misses that personal conscious experience is the data Chalmers says we know best.
3. Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer (critiques of agape): Nietzsche famously attacked Christian “agape” as disguised pity and slave morality— life-denying resentment masked as selflessness— contrasting it with his amor fati (unconditional yes-saying to life). Schopenhauer grounded ethics in compassion (Mitleid) arising from recognizing the shared will-to-live, but his metaphysics was pessimistic: endless desire, no room for appreciative or self-giving love.
The contrast highlights Jesus/Q’s radical edge: unconditional love is not pity or resignation but active, creative imitation of a generous Source. It affirms life by improving the human condition (your “exodus from the animal”), not denying it. Where Nietzsche saw weakness, the Q vision sees the highest heroism— towering in stature precisely by refusing retaliation. Schopenhauer’s compassion gets close but lacks the unconditional freedom: Jesus removes any expectation of return, turning compassion into pure overflow.
Reframing for Dialogue with Materialists
Materialists often reject “spiritual” intuitions as pre-scientific baggage. A productive reframing treats unconditional love as a philosophical hypothesis fully compatible with science:
• Empirical anchor: It makes no claims that contradict physics, quantum mechanics, or neuroscience. Quantum “weirdness” (Greene) and the mystery of intrinsic mass (Baggott) already leave room for fundamental mind-like properties. Unconditional love simply proposes that those properties include an intrinsic orientation toward value— impartial goodness— observable in nature (sun/rain) and human experience (NDEs, ethical outcomes).
• The missing “why”: Science excels at “how” (mechanisms); materialism’s reduction of meaning to illusion or byproduct leaves the primal human impulse (Frankl) unsatisfied. Q’s insight supplies the “why” without magic: consciousness exists because reality’s core is generative love, expressed through freedom-respecting processes. This is testable in lived results— societies practicing non-retaliation measurably reduce suffering.
• Ethics without dogma: No miracles, no afterlife coercion. It’s a values-based naturalism: love your enemy because it fulfills our highest humanity, honors freedom (no coercion), and aligns with evidence of progress. Materialists already value evidence-based ethics (e.g., Singer’s effective altruism); unconditional love radicalizes it by removing all tribal or reciprocal conditions.
• Bridge via Chalmers: If consciousness is fundamental (as many materialists-turned-panpsychists concede), then asking its nature is fair game. Your proposal: it is not value-neutral but oriented toward unconditional goodness— the only thing that fully satisfies the impulse to meaning.
This avoids the “God of the gaps” trap. It says: science describes the surface; spiritual intuition (personal experience evaluated by humane criteria) reveals the core value. No conflict— only complementarity.
Tracing the Unconditional Theme in Other Traditions
The insight is not uniquely Christian; it appears as a convergent human discovery across traditions, often as boundless compassion or non-interfering harmony rather than a personal deity’s love.
• Buddhism: Metta (loving-kindness) meditation cultivates impartial goodwill toward all beings, including enemies, with no expectation of return. Karuna (compassion) is boundless, arising from realizing interconnectedness (pratītyasamutpāda). The bodhisattva vow delays personal enlightenment to aid all sentient beings unconditionally— echoing “love your enemies” without a creator-God framing. It is practical: end suffering by dropping conditions.
• Hinduism and Jainism: Ahimsa (non-violence) demands harmlessness to all life, rooted in the oneness of atman (self) with Brahman (ultimate reality). Bhakti devotion can be unconditional surrender to the divine, expressing love without merit. Jainism takes it to extremes— sweeping insects from paths— emphasizing compassion as the ethical outworking of non-dual reality.
• Taoism: The Tao Te Ching describes the Tao as spontaneous, non-coercive flow (wu wei— actionless action). Sages embody ci (compassion) by aligning without forcing or judging— rain falls impartially, much like Q’s sun and rain. Love here is natural harmony, not commanded but realized when ego-drops away.
These converge on your point: the “spiritual” intuition across history intuits a core reality that is generous, non-retaliatory, and freedom-honoring. Religions often added conditions (tribal gods, karma as cosmic payback), but the purest streams recover the unconditional— exactly as Jung noted with “false images.” NDEs worldwide echo the same: ultimate reality feels like overwhelming, impartial love.
This cross-traditional pattern strengthens the case: unconditional love is not a sectarian claim but the mature human insight into reality’s essence. It liberates consciousness everywhere by replacing threat with trust, retaliation with generosity, and fear with the highest heroism— loving the enemy as the final step in our exodus to full humanity.
If any strand here sparks further exploration (e.g., specific Q reconstructions, a deeper Chalmers dialogue, or practical ethics experiments), just point the way.
Now, a weave into time…
It puzzles me why people who embrace materialism (notably the more dogmatic varieties) miss things that are so central to human consciousness and life like the “behavior based on belief” coupling that expresses our primary impulse to meaning and purpose. The belief part relates to our intuitions about the metaphysical/spiritual and the ideals that we project there to define that.
We live in a universe where we only see about 4% of reality and we know there is so much more that is invisible. What about surrounding multiple realms (10, 11, 26?) and then multiverses, etc. OK, what is all that? What is the essential nature of that metaphysical? Its obviously responsible for the material realm we exist within and, hence, central to meaning and purpose.
Quantum physics comes at that from an empirical approach and has arrived, so far, at quantum fields (i.e. Baggot in “Mass”) but still does not know what, at a deeper level, maintains it all in existence. Arthur Eddington said that it was something of the nature of “Thought/Mind”. Many others in physics now admit that it is Consciousness of some kind, as Brian Greene said in the section below. Are more physicists now moving toward the Copenhagen conclusion of Neils Bohr on the inseparable relationship of conscious observer to observed reality? Einstein detested that conclusion as evident in his statement , “I refuse to believe the moon is not there when I am not looking at it”.
(Point in paragraph above- Conscious observer affirming greater Consciousness as the most basic reality that creates/sustains all other reality.)
Insert note on AI Overview’s points below: I am not sure why it states- “No ‘Conscious’ Observer Needed: While often misinterpreted as requiring a conscious human observer, Bohr’s ‘observer’ meant an objective registering apparatus.”
It appears obvious that there can be no such thing as an “experimental measurement apparatus” or “objective registering apparatus” without a conscious observer operating that. So, a “Huh?” from simple-minded me.
Anyway, I asked AI Overview- “What is the Copenhagen conclusion of Neils Bohr on the inseparable relationship of conscious observer to observed reality?”
AI Overview responded:
Niels Bohr’s Copenhagen interpretation concludes that there is an inseparable, holistic relationship between the observer (or more precisely, the experimental measurement apparatus) and the observed quantum system.
Bohr’s central conclusion is that quantum phenomena do not possess definite properties independent of the experimental context in which they are measured. Therefore, the observed object and the observing instrument form a single, inseparable “dynamical whole”.
Key aspects of Bohr’s inseparability principle include:
• Inseparability of System and Apparatus: Bohr emphasized that the interaction between the atomic object and the measuring device is uncontrollable. Therefore, one cannot separate the behavior of the atomic object from the measurement apparatus itself, meaning the “phenomenon” is the entire setup.
• Rejection of Independent Reality: Bohr denied that quantum objects possess inherent properties (like position or momentum) prior to measurement. He stated, “the whole situation in atomic physics deprives of all meaning such inherent attributes as the idealization of classical physics would ascribe to such objects”.
• The “Cut” is Context-Dependent: Unlike others who proposed a sharp, rigid cut between the observer and the observed, Bohr argued that the boundary (the “Heisenberg cut”) is determined by the experimental arrangement, and can be moved based on what is being treated as part of the apparatus or part of the system.
• No “Conscious” Observer Needed: While often misinterpreted as requiring a conscious human observer, Bohr’s “observer” meant an objective registering apparatus. He was not a subjectivist; he argued that measurement results must be recorded objectively and independent of any individual researcher’s personal opinion.
• Complementarity: Bohr used this principle to explain that different, mutually exclusive experiments reveal different, complementary aspects of reality (e.g., wave-like or particle-like behavior), both of which are needed for a full description.
• Epistemic Approach: Bohr famously concluded that “There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum-physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature”.
In summary, Bohr’s view was that a quantum system’s characteristics are not predetermined, but rather emerge from the interaction with the measurement setup, making the observer and observed inseparable components of a single phenomenon.
(End of AI Overview)
Also, I get the reaction of materialists to any conclusions that include some element of consciousness as affirming intelligence/personhood because that fundamental creating reality, in their view, smacks too much of something “religious”. No, it need not point to that at all, especially if the fundamental consciousness is defined as unconditional which is entirely contrary to conditional religion. “Unconditional love” as creating Source of all is the ultimate affirmation of human freedom, diversity, and inclusion (though not, of course, defined in terms of contemporary collectivist DEI under Woke Racism).
Point? Don’t then throw out babies with bathwater (i.e. throw out all creating deity because you can only define such as religious) and lock into simple-minded dualisms of “this extreme posited as exclusive from that extreme”. To paraphrase Maoists, let 8 billion flowers bloom.
Anyway, more on this “spiritual” element in human meaning…
“Quantum entanglement and the illusion of time, in 79 minutes | Jim Al-Khalili: Full Interview”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xp3Bs6nZ-Y
I listened to a bit of this video on time and it sparked the thought that philosophical materialism misses important insights for human understanding when it ignores the consciousness element of reality and especially the “spiritual/ethical/moral” element of that consciousness.
Physics then wanders around in endless speculations on this and that, much like the religious theologians endlessly speculating on esoteric theological points that have no relationship to any sort of actually existing reality. That is why certain criteria function better to guide us toward useful insights and assumptions that are more connected to actual possible realities out there.
Hence, I offer the unconditional love ideal as most likely the best of insights to point to the true nature of Ultimate Reality, as in the creating Deity. If “God is love” and if unconditional is the highest form of love, as Historical Jesus taught, then the truth of God as unconditional love is the ultimate nature of the core reality that creates and sustains all in existence. That is the highest good, and God is ultimate Good, and hence that which is most true and most real of all.
But now the thought provoked by this video on time-
Why is there time? Why does time exist? A larger narrative of human development helps to understand this. As Greene and Chalmers admitted, they (materialists) are missing something critical to understanding consciousness and they don’t know what that missing element is. I would suggest that the missing element is the “spiritual” element to all truth and reality (i.e. the “spiritual/ethical/moral” element of love).
So why the element of time in this material reality that we come into? We come from a realm of no time and no space, according to many NDE accounts. And we come to live out a life story that is experienced within time. And we need time because of the cause/effect relationship between moments, between actions/behavior and impacts or outcomes, and how this shapes human learning, development, and growth for good and bad.
We do something and a consequence follows in time from our actions/behavior. And from the outcomes or consequences we learn morality, the difference between good and evil. If we choose to do something good then we get a good outcome (not always, but often enough). But if we do something bad, then we get a bad outcome or consequence.
This coupling of action/outcome in the context of flowing time is critical to the whole point of coming here to learn what love is and how to love, in contrast to hate and evil.
We make such choices between good and bad constantly throughout our lives. And because of the outcomes experienced in time, the action and outcome flow in time, we understand and learn how to mature as human. We need time to understand that certain actions/behaviors produce certain outcomes/effects.
The progression or flow of time is the critical context or environment in which human development occurs and progresses. Maturing and growth occurs across the flow of time, across the span of human life stories. Time is therefore critical to learning love and how to love. Human development and maturing is not instantaneous but through gradual progression across time.
And this on “materialism”:
AI Overview
Philosophical materialism posits that reality consists solely of physical matter and its interactions, rejecting supernatural existence. Scientific materialism, or methodological materialism, is the practical application of this view, investigating the universe through empirical science, treating all phenomena, including consciousness, as products of material processes.
Key Aspects of Materialism:
• Philosophical Materialism (Metaphysical): Asserts that only physical stuff exists. Thoughts, feelings, and consciousness are produced by brain activity. It rejects the idea of a separate soul or non-physical spiritual realm.
• Scientific Materialism (Methodological): Operates on the premise that the universe is a machine made of matter and energy, best understood through the scientific method. It focuses on empirical observation and often aligns with physics and biology to explain all phenomena.
• Core Tenets: Both forms argue that all events, including human behavior, are determined by physical laws, often linking to determinism or emergentism (where new properties emerge from complex physical interactions).
• Historical Context: Materialist views date back to ancient Greek philosophers like Democritus, as well as Indian philosophy, often viewing the world as atoms in motion.
• Distinctions: While philosophical materialism argues that nothing supernatural exists, scientific materialism focuses on the practical approach that only physical causes are testable, sometimes allowing for a more agnostic stance on the ultimate nature of reality.
Differences in Application:
• Philosophy: Focuses on the nature of reality (ontology).
• Science: Focuses on the study of reality (methodology).
Note: Some critics argue that scientific materialism can become a strict ideology (scientism) that denies the value of non-material inquiry.
(End of AI Overview)