Agree with your comments about Crick, and kicking the can down the road, and Intelligent Design.
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I think this is what Goff means by consciousness in the nondual panpsychist sense — except that it is not “in” everyone, it “is” everyone.
Further disagreement about Goff agreeing with your views.
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If you find these models incredible or too far-fetched, at least contemplate the possibility that humans, in our everyday experience, are consciousnesses (souls) incarnated into bodies. “This is the dualism Goff (and I) disagree with. To say that consciousness is incarnated into bodies implies that bodies are not, themselves, expressions of consciousness. That consciousness and bodies are two different things”.
Disagree with you here up to a point. Consciousness and bodies are apparently two different things but, as you say, not ultimately. I would say that they exist at different levels of reality. Would you not even go so far as to say that mind and brains are different types, alternative versions of consciousness?
Regarding the Raynor Johnson paragraph, I'm not saying that the body is no longer an expression of consciousness. As we both agree, everything is consciousness. However, even Buddhists must see the body as different, since they believe that being incarnated into it is the source of suffering, and they are trying to free themselves from the need to reincarnate into it (even if it is merely consciousness).
Therefore “partial and imperfect” is a sort of value judgment. If higher level is not better, why do so many people, including Buddhists, aspire to reach 'higher' levels of consciousness through meditation and other spiritual practices? This does not mean that we should have a negative attitude towards the body.
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There is a level of our being at which we are pure consciousness, completely without personality or anything else associated with the lower levels, but where we nevertheless recognise ourselves as individuals, separate from other such beings.
“And a level above that where there is only pure, undifferentiated consciousness”.
Agreed. That is why I think Raynor Johnson puts spirit above what it is to be human.
To say that on the level of pure consciousness “We are all one,” as many do, is already unnecessarily dualistic. There is no “we” until consciousness behaves us. (Agreed. That is the level I call the soul/monad.)
Before emanations begin, there is only consciousness. Which, to my mind, suggests that everything else is consciousness, too, including the human body and its brain. (Agreed.)
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Agree with the rest of your points, although I might say that matter is one form of consciousness among others. It's hard to believe that matter is consciousness without some qualification, perhaps that it is not consciousness in its purest form.
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More agreement this time, what a relief. It seems that we only really disagree about your interpretation of Goff. Looking forward to any evidence of his support for your position.