What differentiates your beliefs from atheism?

[The Sum of Awe]

I believe there is a Divine Will and perhaps even consciousness to existence, I take it very literally that the universe is God. But I'm aware that a lot of pantheists may disagree on that, and I'm curious what is the difference between your naturalistic pantheism from naturalistic atheism.

 

[dybmh]

Panentheist here, I suppose for me, it's that I do not think God is ONLY expressed will.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Panentheist here, I suppose for me, it's that I do not think God is ONLY expressed will.

If existence is God's expressed will, isn't the other parts of God nonexistent?

 

[dybmh]

If existence is God's expressed will, isn't the other parts of God nonexistent?

Yes, I differentiate between existence and reality.

In my view, existence is what was and what is.

Reality includes that and more: What was, what is, what will be, what wasn't, what isn't, what won't and what could be.

 

[vulcanlogician]

I tend to look at reality/the universe/existence as one thing with a bunch of little parts, rather than a bunch of little parts that do their own thing independently (and just happen to share the same space).

There's nothing in either of these views that is necessarily separate them from atheism; an atheist could adopt either view. But since this is the pantheism DIR, and OP is asking what differentes my view from atheism, it'd probably be the notion that all things constitute a single whole... it is only we humans that find it useful to chop things up into distinct parts. But it is more properly seen as one seamless thing.

 

[Jainarayan]

I believe there is a Divine Will and perhaps even consciousness to existence, I take it very literally that the universe is God. But I'm aware that a lot of pantheists may disagree on that, and I'm curious what is the difference between your naturalistic pantheism from naturalistic atheism.

At one point I was an agnostic deist. Agnostic in that I didn't know if it was "God" or just a universal consciousness, something like the Force of Star Wars, or some such thing. In any case, it was something that got everything started, set up the rules and then just let it run. It was the Watchmaker Analogy.

As a theist and monist I'm a pantheist and panentheist. In Hindu philosophy they are not mutually exclusive. Brahman is the universe ... sarvam khalvidam brahma (Chandogya Upanishad)... "all this verily is Brahman", yet Brahman manifests as God, as well as everything we see and are, who is immanent and transcendent. In chapter 10 of the Bhagavad Gita Krishna describes his attributes:

• Neither celestial gods nor the great sages know of My origin. I am the source from which the gods and great seers come.
• From Me alone arise the varieties of qualities in humans, such as intellect, knowledge, clarity of thought, forgiveness, truthfulness, control over the senses and mind, joy and sorrow, birth and death, fear and courage, non-violence, equanimity, contentment, austerity, charity, fame, and infamy.
• I am the origin of all creation. Everything proceeds from Me. The wise who know this perfectly worship Me with great faith and devotion.
• O Arjun, I am seated in the heart of all living entities. I am the beginning, middle, and end of all beings.

Those are just a very few. The last verse, I believe establishes pantheism and panentheism by pervading and being the universe yet supporting it from "outside":
What need is there for all this detailed knowledge, O Arjun? Simply know that by one fraction of My being, I pervade and support this entire creation.

There are Hindus who have a naturalistic atheistic belief. There are atheistic Hindus who believe that the world arises from a single source, Brahman, that is not necessarily "divine" (certainly not "God", as Brahman is usually erroneously believed to be) but rather energy and/or the "stuff" of the universe. The same energy and stuff of the universe that physicists speak of. Even for theists, the universe though a creation of "God" or gods can be said to be based on and works by physical laws that physicists and other scientists describe. Hinduism is largely monistic.

So, what is the difference between my naturalistic pantheism and naturalistic atheism? Nothing except the inclusion of "God". God doesn't pull the strings as in Abrahamic belief, God is the strings.

 

[Ella S.]

For me, the two terms are about fundamentally different topics.

I am a strong atheist because I believe that classical theism is false. In a more general sense, I also lack a belief in both polytheism and monotheism. So I am an atheist in both the general, casual use of the word and the more narrow, philosophical meaning of the word.

My pantheism is a metaphysical position that is best understood in the context of competing metaphysical systems. Unlike Buddhist metaphysics, I do not regard existence as an impermanent illusion of division from an underlying emptiness. Unlike Neoplatonic metaphysics, which is often considered panentheistic, I do not consider the realm of matter to be an emanation of a higher mental realm. Unlike Hindu metaphysics, I do not believe panpsychism or the idea that the universe itself is conscious or has its own mind.

Instead, I believe in eternalism, which is the idea that the past, present, and future are all fixed and pre-determined. I also believe that the only thing that we can say truly exists is the natural world which can be observed by science and that minds are an illusion. The former makes me a determinist, the later makes me an eliminative materialist.

"Metaphysical naturalism" is, in my opinion, a modern term for a much older concept. Before we had naturalism, we had materialism. To clarify, "materialism" is used as a name for both a metaphysical position and a wholly unrelated system of values that places an emphasis on wealth and luxury. In this context, I am referring to the metaphysical position that the only "thing" which exists is matter.

The ancient Stoics were materialists in this sense. They were also one of the first philosophers to put forward the idea that movement is not separate from matter but, instead, is a property of it. That is to say, they did not believe in an immaterial force that "acted upon" matter, such as the waves in metaphysical atomism set forward by the Epicureans, but instead that matter itself is responsible for its own movements.

Movements of matter, to the Stoics, were determined by the fixed patterns of fate that follow from cause-and-effect. This idea would become picked up by Spinoza, later leading to the concept of "pantheism" which rejected both mind-body dualism and the existence of the supernatural in favor of materialistic fatalism. He called this material hand of fate "Nature."

Today, this form of pantheism has been given the further retronym of "classical pantheism," because after Spinoza there came many other forms of pantheism. The concept of "naturalism" itself is closely related to Spinoza's conception of Nature. However, pantheism was originally a specific form of naturalism that included fatalism and that's what I mean when I say that I am a pantheist.

In fact, I would say that I'm an atheist precisely because I'm a pantheist, similar to how Spinoza has long been accused of promoting atheism himself due to his naturalism. You could say that, to me, pantheism is a specific atheist position that is based on naturalism and eternalism.

In other words, "atheism" tells you what I don't believe in. "Pantheism" tells you the metaphysical position that I do believe in, which is not shared by all atheists. Even among naturalistic atheists, some are Buddhists, some are reductive materialists, some are physicalists, some reject eternalism, some are empiricists who are only methodological naturalists rather than metaphysical naturalists, some are presentists, etc.

 

[George-ananda]

I believe there is a Divine Will and perhaps even consciousness to existence, I take it very literally that the universe is God. But I'm aware that a lot of pantheists may disagree on that, and I'm curious what is the difference between your naturalistic pantheism from naturalistic atheism.

My pantheism starts with God/Brahman is the reality and the universe is a play/drama of God/Brahman. I see an atheistic pantheism as holding that there is no fundamental Consciousness/God/Brahman and it is in alignment with naturalistic atheism. Richard Dawkins called it 'sexed-up atheism'.

 

[Willamena]

If existence is God's expressed will, isn't the other parts of God nonexistent?

There is no nonexistence. It doesn't exist (hence the name).

 

[The Sum of Awe]

There is no nonexistence. It doesn't exist (hence the name).

I remember our discussions where you have enlightened me on this before, Hence why I said “nonexistent”

 

[Whateverist]

I tend to look at reality/the universe/existence as one thing with a bunch of little parts, rather than a bunch of little parts that do their own thing independently (and just happen to share the same space).

There's nothing in either of these views that is necessarily separate them from atheism; an atheist could adopt either view. But since this is the pantheism DIR, and OP is asking what differentes my view from atheism, it'd probably be the notion that all things constitute a single whole... it is only we humans that find it useful to chop things up into distinct parts. But it is more properly seen as one seamless thing.

This comes closest to my point of view. If pressed to say if I believe god X of such and such tradition exists as described within that tradition I'd have to say no but neither do I feel certain that it can have no reality at all. I'm agnostic but not an atheist because I don't have any idea what God/gods refers to and I don't choose to leave it to those who do believe in them to define it. In stead of heeding legends of supposed historical incidents of God acting in the world or speaking to prophets, I ask what could this possibly mean or refer to that could have made the tradition of god belief so prevalent almost everywhere and probably for as long as we've been recognizably human. But just as the Tao that can be named isn't the real Tao, so all the attempts to name God/gods settle for something less than the real deal. So I remain interested in the phenomenon of god belief but just refuse to speculate on what the nature of the trans natural may be though my hunch is that consciousness is at the core of why that belief arises. That it gets elaborated in variety of ways tells me that any real understanding will have to forgo an explicit elaboration. Not because it isn't real but because our capacity to represent it verbally isn't up to it, except perhaps poetically.

I'm thinking more and more that consciousness isn't something brains emit but rather an ontological primitive like matter in the cosmos - which is the sense in which I am a panentheist. Previously I very glibly thought of consciousness as a process stemming from the physiology of the brain just as digestion is to the GI tract. But we don’t have any evidence for brains actually producing or emitting consciousness. It could as easily be the case that brains are merely a form of matter in living things which quickens consciousness locally and allows it to achieve greater states of individuation and actualization. I lean that way now but I’m content to admit I don’t know and don’t need to know. However that turns out, there is nothing I need to do about it. Yet it is satisfying to have a way to think about how it is that we are as we are in a cosmos/world in which that seems so unusual. But I by saying I think of consciousness as an ontological primitive I'm not committing myself to dualism since no one knows what the relationship between consciousness and matter is. Perhaps one is a subset of the other, leaning either toward idealism or materialism. My hunch is that consciousness is prior and that matter is one manifestation of it, life is an organization of matter that arrises from it and consciousness as we experience it is still another state of consciousness made possible by the manner of our embodiment. But no one really knows the answers to this question either and I choose not to insist dogmatically one way or another. It really is okay to admit to not knowing what we do not know and I subscribe to no grand narrative which predicts that will ever change.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

This comes closest to my point of view. If pressed to say if I believe god X of such and such tradition exists as described within that tradition I'd have to say no but neither do I feel certain that it can have no reality at all. I'm agnostic but not an atheist because I don't have any idea what God/gods refers to and I don't choose to leave it to those who do believe in them to define it. In stead of heeding legends of supposed historical incidents of God acting in the world or speaking to prophets, I ask what could this possibly mean or refer to that could have made the tradition of god belief so prevalent almost everywhere and probably for as long as we've been recognizably human. But just as the Tao that can be named isn't the real Tao, so all the attempts to name God/gods settle for something less than the real deal. So I remain interested in the phenomenon of god belief but just refuse to speculate on what the nature of the trans natural may be though my hunch is that consciousness is at the core of why that belief arises. That it gets elaborated in variety of ways tells me that any real understanding will have to forgo an explicit elaboration. Not because it isn't real but because our capacity to represent it verbally isn't up to it, except perhaps poetically.

That's a productive view on the idea of God. Instead of identifying 'God' as a bearded man in the sky and rejecting all concepts as the same attribution, you acknowledge the definition of God isn't necessarily set in stone and you seem open to the idea that there could be 'God'. Am I correct in understanding?

If that's the case, what if I told you that, much like the Tao, if you seek God you will likely find? You don't have to know what you're looking for, but for me God takes many ways (the way that life always seems to find a way, and positive mentality seems to find a way as well; coincidences and synchronicities in life, how things and people change, and dozens of other ways), I tend to find God in the order of things. Not that I'm saying my view will necessarily resonate with everyone else's, I'm only saying that seeing God might boil down to belief, in the same way that seeing positive side in life boils down to faith in optimism, or seeing negative side of life boils down to belief in pessimism, or if you think colors and numbers have meanings then you'll likely see meaningful stories everywhere that involves colors and numbers.

I'm thinking more and more that consciousness isn't something brains emit but rather an ontological primitive like matter in the cosmos - which is the sense in which I am a panentheist. Previously I very glibly thought of consciousness as a process stemming from the physiology of the brain just as digestion is to the GI tract. But we don’t have any evidence for brains actually producing or emitting consciousness. It could as easily be the case that brains are merely a form of matter in living things which quickens consciousness locally and allows it to achieve greater states of individuation and actualization. I lean that way now but I’m content to admit I don’t know and don’t need to know.

Interesting. I would like to hear your observations that convinces you of that speculation. Because my own observations lead me to believe that consciousness is brain activity. Sight, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling are all associated with the brain, and they are the major descriptors of consciousness. Other descriptors of consciousness is memory and thought, which are also associated with the brain. The last descriptors of consciousness that I can think of are self awareness (which has to do with introspection, which in turn is related to thought and thus the brain) and imagination (which is a combination of memory and sensory outputs, both related to the brain as stated earlier). I cannot think of anything that inhibits consciousness that has nothing to do with the brain, but all of those things I've just mentioned are commonly identified aspects of consciousness and have to do with the brain. Not to mention, consciousness is affected when brain damage occurs.

However that turns out, there is nothing I need to do about it. Yet it is satisfying to have a way to think about how it is that we are as we are in a cosmos/world in which that seems so unusual. But I by saying I think of consciousness as an ontological primitive I'm not committing myself to dualism since no one knows what the relationship between consciousness and matter is. Perhaps one is a subset of the other, leaning either toward idealism or materialism. My hunch is that consciousness is prior and that matter is one manifestation of it, life is an organization of matter that arrises from it and consciousness as we experience it is still another state of consciousness made possible by the manner of our embodiment. But no one really knows the answers to this question either and I choose not to insist dogmatically one way or another. It really is okay to admit to not knowing what we do not know and I subscribe to no grand narrative which predicts that will ever change.

 

[Whateverist]

you acknowledge the definition of God isn't necessarily set in stone and you seem open to the idea that there could be 'God'. Am I correct in understanding?

Yes I already think that what I think gives rise to God belief is real, dynamic and important. One hears the term ground of being; I think consciousness fills the bill.

I just don't think it is a being apart from us let alone the engineer that created and orchestrates all we see. I think consciousness is distributive throughout taking different phase forms depending on local conditions, rocks and minerals included though they change very slowly over time. Time is definitely real as we who endure a while are witness to. But everything changes even what endures renews itself on the fly. If we didn't we couldn't endure. We require both change and resistance to change in order to be as we are. Life requires both material being and consciousness.

If that's the case, what if I told you that, much like the Tao, if you seek God you will likely find?

Well I don't think there is anything inevitable about it. Not all who seek to sing in key find that note. It requires not just reason and learning but intuition and imagination too, the latter not for making **** up but as a mode of understanding. That's what makes poetry come alive and music become transformative for some. Figuring stuff out won't take you the whole way. You also need to be receptive. What 'God' is is already on board just like whatever talents you may have, you have to learn to access that. Sometimes you just have to shut the hell up and wait for insight and inspiration without racing ahead and deciding in advance what you intend to find.

I would like to hear your observations that convinces you of that speculation. Because my own observations lead me to believe that consciousness is brain activity. Sight, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling are all associated with the brain, and they are the major descriptors of consciousness. Other descriptors of consciousness is memory and thought, which are also associated with the brain. The last descriptors of consciousness that I can think of are self awareness (which has to do with introspection, which in turn is related to thought and thus the brain) and imagination (which is a combination of memory and sensory outputs, both related to the brain as stated earlier). I cannot think of anything that inhibits consciousness that has nothing to do with the brain, but all of those things I've just mentioned are commonly identified aspects of consciousness and have to do with the brain. Not to mention, consciousness is affected when brain damage occurs.

Brains are most definitely required for consciousness as we know it. Gorilla, dog or corvid consciousness a different kind of brain. But even single celled slime molds can solve mazes, so consciousness doesn't require a brain. Only certain expressions of consciousness do. But more importantly if brains were actually churning out consciousness, no one has figured out how that happens and how could you rule out that the consciousness wasn't simply there and being amplified by the local conditions provided by those brains or what ever organelles make the slime mold as smart as it is or even that mountain of granite which helps provide the resistance that grants extension in time and space? Very likely, under this approach, consciousness is eternal though the granite mountain may wear away, the slime mold, crow, dog, gorilla and man will all die but they live while they do and pass along the conditions which make possible more of those expressions of consciousness.

But whether we think dying stars gives rise to increasingly complex elements which under the right circumstances gives rise to life which evolves through competition to better and better cognitive capacity and that just somehow gives rise to consciousness -or- consciousness is something more basic which takes on different phase characteristics depending on local conditions which still exploits dying stars, abiogenesis and evolution, neither account can be ruled out or demonstrated. So both POVs are possible and I think the perspective I'm toying with gets us around dualism and grounds the existence and success of god belief which very likely helped to shape our humanity. Either way, we'll never know which is true and it doesn't matter.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Yes I already think that what I think gives rise to God belief is real, dynamic and important. One hears the term ground of being; I think consciousness fills the bill.

I just don't think it is a being apart from us let alone the engineer that created and orchestrates all we see. I think consciousness is distributive throughout taking different phase forms depending on local conditions, rocks and minerals included though they change very slowly over time. Time is definitely real as we who endure a while are witness to. But everything changes even what endures renews itself on the fly. If we didn't we couldn't endure. We require both change and resistance to change in order to be as we are. Life requires both material being and consciousness.



Well I don't think there is anything inevitable about it. Not all who seek to sing in key find that note. It requires not just reason and learning but intuition and imagination too, the latter not for making **** up but as a mode of understanding. That's what makes poetry come alive and music become transformative for some. Figuring stuff out won't take you the whole way. You also need to be receptive. What 'God' is is already on board just like whatever talents you may have, you have to learn to access that. Sometimes you just have to shut the hell up and wait for insight and inspiration without racing ahead and deciding in advance what you intend to find.

I agree with both these posts.

Brains are most definitely required for consciousness as we know it. Gorilla, dog or corvid consciousness a different kind of brain. But even single celled slime molds can solve mazes, so consciousness doesn't require a brain. Only certain expressions of consciousness do. But more importantly if brains were actually churning out consciousness, no one has figured out how that happens and how could you rule out that the consciousness wasn't simply there and being amplified by the local conditions provided by those brains or what ever organelles make the slime mold as smart as it is or even that mountain of granite which helps provide the resistance that grants extension in time and space? Very likely, under this approach, consciousness is eternal though the granite mountain may wear away, the slime mold, crow, dog, gorilla and man will all die but they live while they do and pass along the conditions which make possible more of those expressions of consciousness.

It's likely that slime molds require other sensory devices to solve these mazes, unless you can provide evidence for something nonphysical influencing their reactions to solve these mazes.

But whether we think dying stars gives rise to increasingly complex elements which under the right circumstances gives rise to life which evolves through competition to better and better cognitive capacity and that just somehow gives rise to consciousness -or- consciousness is something more basic which takes on different phase characteristics depending on local conditions which still exploits dying stars, abiogenesis and evolution, neither account can be ruled out or demonstrated. So both POVs are possible and I think the perspective I'm toying with gets us around dualism and grounds the existence and success of god belief which very likely helped to shape our humanity. Either way, we'll never know which is true and it doesn't matter.

I admittedly don't know how you're defining consciousness, and how it could be something that begets dying stars, abiogenesis, and evolution. The way I always perceived consciousness is awareness of the world around us. What reasons would I have to believe that 'consciousness' is some underlying force of the universe?

 

[Whateverist]

It's likely that slime molds require other sensory devices to solve these mazes, unless you can provide evidence for something nonphysical influencing their reactions to solve these mazes.

Perhaps and I was suggesting as much in alluding to their organelles. But my own hunch is that key aspects of consciousness are present in all life no matter how small or how stationary. So responding winningly to situations -even the artificial ones imposed by scientists and their mazes- is something life has been doing since as long as there has been life. But I reject the notion that the purposeful activity of life in responding to challenges its sensory array detect and interpret cognitively is comprehensible as a 'mechanism'. Life is nothing like a machine and if aspects of physiology appear as such to us, that is our own cognitive faculty seeking to understand what it finds metaphorically.

 

[Esaurus]

What differentiates your beliefs from atheism?"

May I try my 2 cents worth? This is also to the rest of you.

Atheism is one of many beliefs. As for me, I do not merely believe that any of you exists or if the moon exists. I know so!. I know that the moon is a heavenly body and that you are persons! So do I likewise know that God of the Bible exists. I know Him as a person the way I know you as a person.

Truth of the existence of God was settled long, long ago and we were collectively told. Should we believe? Reality will in due time catch up with us all. None of us want a bad grade from Mr. Reality! The surety of God and the Bible were made controversial by skeptics over the years and rogue politics of today to mislead us.

The field of science proves God daily! If for example we should attribute only natural causes to the fact that the the earth, moon, and the sun are precisely at the correct sizes and distances relative to each other for us to have total eclipses of the sun and moon, then we may conclude that someone cheated!

Isn't it the spiritual side of us that governs our use of science? What keeps us from using it for harmful experiments on live people? Although our educational institutions are meant to promote knowledge mainly in the natural realm as spiritual institutions (churches, etc.) promote knowledge mainly in the spiritual realm, so should our education institutions support both realms not as conflicts to each other but as cousins that support each other hand in hand.

ELD

 

[vulcanlogician]

But we don’t have any evidence for brains actually producing or emitting consciousness.

I think we do have some evidence. Although I don't think any of this evidence allows us to conclude anything concrete about consciousness. We, as humans enter different states of consciousness in our daily life. These are measurable states. We enter states of sleep regularly, and while we are in these sleep states, we are not aware of things around us. But, when not in these states, we ARE (apparently) aware of the world around us.

Neuroscience has shown that sleep states are brain states. And so, brain activity is something that can lead to the "switching on" or "switching off" of consciousness.

Granted, these facts do not discount the theory that conscious is more primitive to the universe than brain states. But it does count for evidence that our brains may (somehow) "emit" consciousness.

 

[Whateverist]

I think we do have some evidence. Although I don't think any of this evidence allows us to conclude anything concrete about consciousness. We, as humans enter different states of consciousness in our daily life. These are measurable states. We enter states of sleep regularly, and while we are in these sleep states, we are not aware of things around us. But, when not in these states, we ARE (apparently) aware of the world around us

Agreed. We experience various states we refer to as varieties of consciousness and our brains can be measured in various ways to associate various readings with those states. That our brains are involved is not in question. What I question is whether our brains churn out what we call consciousness or rather have an effect of some sort on what is already there.

I’m not suggesting our brains are like radio receivers that pull it out of the air. I dismiss that as silly even without conclusive reasons. But if consciousness is an ontological primitive that is associated with all life and possibly with matter too, then the manner of our embodiment might just influence its expression rather than manufacture the ‘stuff’ wholesale. We see the manifestation of various states of consciousness and we see our brains have a role in it, I just don’t think we know what that role is. Even brainless creatures exhibit purposeful behavior and the brains of different creatures do seem to result in various expressions of consciousness. But the assumption that matter or chemical activity is creating it from what is entirely lacking in consciousness has not been demonstrated to be the case. It might be true but then what I’m proposing, also unevidenced, might also be true. The more standard assumption treats consciousness as a thing among things assumed to be subject to materialist expectations. But whether that applies where the very stuff of those seeking to understand it is concerned, to my mind, is doubtable. I’m not sure any materialist account will suffice but I don’t think the alternative is fairy dust; I just think it is genuinely puzzling and deserved an open minded investigation.

ranted, these facts do not discount the theory that conscious is more primitive to the universe than brain states. But it does count for evidence that our brains may (somehow) "emit" consciousness.

I don’t see how that favors emission over amplifying since the brain is involved in either case. It certainly would keep the investigation on familiar ground and seemingly be a more promising route since there is more know-how available along that course. More likely we never have conclusive scientific reasons for either explanation, in which case I’ll go with my bias against thinking of life/consciousness as mechanistic.

 

[Esaurus]

Hi guys. Would it be OK if I try giving a little more help?

Granted, these facts do not discount the theory that conscious is more primitive to the universe than brain states. But it does count for evidence that our brains may (somehow) "emit" consciousness.

Agreed. We experience various states we refer to as varieties of consciousness and our brains can be measured in various ways to associate various readings with those states. That our brains are involved is not in question. What I question is whether our brains churn out what we call consciousness or rather have an effect of some sort on what is already there.

I don’t see how that favors emission over amplifying since the brain is involved in either case. It certainly would keep the investigation on familiar ground and seemingly be a more promising route since there is more know-how available along that course. More likely we never have conclusive scientific reasons for either explanation, in which case I’ll go with my bias against thinking of life/consciousness as mechanistic.

Lets think about a car with a driver. When we look down the street to see a "car turning a corner," we are really seeing the car with a driver within it steering it around the corner. There's nothing about the mechanics of an automobile that gives it conscience and intelligence to control itself. That comes from a totally separate entity called a person.

Likewise, conscience within a person is a completely separate entity from the body and its functions. We may see the brain as the cab of a crane that holds the operator. Although we understand how the operator interacts with the crane, it will always be an unsearchable mystery for us as for how the spiritual part of us (soul and spirit) controls our bodies.

Below are links that better covers the subject of the soul and spirit of an individual that I hope would be helpful.

What is the difference between the soul and spirit of humanity? | GotQuestions.org

What is the difference between the soul and spirit of humanity? Is the spirit part of the soul, or are the two entirely separate?

www.gotquestions.org

What Is the Soul? Is It Different from the Spirit?

Religious or not, most people believe they have some form of a soul. Whether they loosely believe in a concept like “the human spirit,” or they believe…

zondervanacademic.com

ELD

 

[vulcanlogician]

But if consciousness is an ontological primitive that is associated with all life and possibly with matter too, then the manner of our embodiment might just influence its expression rather than manufacture the ‘stuff’ wholesale.

Fair point. I don't think we have the privilege to dismiss an idea like panphysicism, given what we can solidly determine on the subject. I think you've properly placed boundaries around what someone may rightly call a conscious experience. And panpsychism is very much a live hypothesis so far as I can see.

Also, I take the idea of consciousness being "ontologically primitive" to suggest some manner of panpsychism... or that some form of consciousness (however slight) is present in all material things, even those we might normally categorize as inanimate.

The one point which I am trying to (carefully) push back on, is the notion that it is evident that inanimate objects possess some modicum of consciousness. We have no such evidence. True, we haven't any evidence to the contrary... but neither have we evidence of the fundamentality of consciousness. Who can say that it is not the complexity, the vast complexity, of neurological activity in our physical brains that produce consciousness? And so the argument goes, the brain is a hunk of water and carbon. It itself is not consciousness. But when the brain does its thing, when all those neurons fire and set off chain reactions, that's when the (emergent) phenomenon of consciousness arises.

I don’t see how that favors emission over amplifying since the brain is involved in either case.

The "emission" hypothesis is weak. But I don't think it's quite dead. So I'm not claiming I've refuted any of what you've said.

But if you want to say that the brain "amplifies" or (perhaps) "augments" or "shapes" consciousness, I think you have to contend with the fact that the brain can not only augment consciousness. It can shut it completely off. The brain, in fact does this with every human being for 6-8 hours every day with all of us.