We Are God (And God Is Lost)

I have often thought humans exist within the perfect realm of subconscious power and conscious awareness; we are able to talk about the unfathomable and bend our minds to try and accept absurd principles, and yet in the landscapes of our subconscious, these absurdities exist without check as mundanities. For instance, we can look up into the night sky and understand the nature of the little white lights which populate the inky blackness; we know these are stars, and we know they are billions and billions of miles away. We accept these things with a certain ease, but may become uneasy when we realize that a mile is about one of the largest distances we can wrap our heads around. So what, then, is ten miles? Well, the limit of our visual perception. So what about a hundred miles? A thousand? Even a million miles seems like an absurd concept, but in reality it is 1/93rd of the distance to our own sun. We marvel at the size and mystery of space, but we rarely think about how our subconscious is even more broad and possibly less empirically studied than space.

These problems do not just stem from a feeble grasp of the cosmic scale. Humans are also *blessed* with the godlike faculty of analytical introspection; we know exactly, sometimes painfully, how our sensory bounds limit our ability to grasp certain concepts. All humans are capable of this introspection; it requires no degree or higher education, and may even be benefitted by a lack thereof. Humans are among the only species able to wrestle with the concept of death and wonder what is beyond the veil. We are also one of the only species capable of reaching into the depths of our very existence and wondering, "Why?", or "How?", or even, "What?". As in - why are we the only species able to ask these questions? How are the consciousness of other species predicated on responses to external stimuli and basal drives like reproduction, hunger, and thirst, while we as humans need no stimulus to suffer exceedingly from the simple knowledge of ourselves? And finally, what even is consciousness?

Of course, some may already see an increasing complexity which I have alluded to several times in my essay series on the Fundamental Problem, but I'd like to stray away from that concept here and simply discuss the boundaries of this power, some alternate perspectives, and explain the second part of the title without, hopefully, mentioning its mustachioed godfather. 

Why are we often subject to a fear of the dark? One reason may be that the dark represents the unknown, and we know how much unknown there is in the universe. It's funny to me that a species which cannot even grasp distances on its own planet has walked on a moon almost a quarter of a million miles away. I have a three hour drive from my home to my university totalling about 180 miles. I have no idea what that really means or what it looks like, save for a rough image on a map. However, that disconnect between the limits of our perception and the limitlessness of our consciousness may be the key to human achievement. If we knew how far the moon is with the same surety that we know the length of an arm, for example, the moon would seem a prosaic garnish to Earth in our mind. Would we even seek it out? Assuming we had similar technological progression up to the space race of the sixties, I don't believe we'd be as interested in exploring space if there was anything about it that we could grasp.

What about philosophy? If there were concrete answers we knew about the nature of our existence and the inner workings of our consciousness, we'd have almost no need for most of philosophy. Why bother with epistemological work when we know from where our knowledge derives, and what use is phenomenology when our existence is no longer a mystery? Instead of these sureties, humans are ever-presented with unsurety and challenge.

I don't spend a lot of time speculating on the origin of religion, as I'm sure the creation of every major and minor faith was more a blend of several impetuses rather than a singular cause, but one possible explanation is that this unsurety (and complexity) had often overwhelmed people of the past, and so faith was designed to limit the boundaries of the world, allowing people the comfort of going about their lives without being crushed by the vast weight of the sky, or the large distances on Earth. A noble motive, and one which still holds precedent in the modern world. Whether or not religion was twisted around to fit the needs of whoever controlled the populace is another matter.

If you'll recall, I began this post by mentioning humans had the "godlike" ability of introspection, which as you may have guessed, is the origin of the first half of the title. Now, I don't consider human consciousness dead by any means, and this isn't a cute prelude to Nietzche's famous tirade in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. When I say God is lost, I simply mean that we have lost some of the acuity which pushed us as a species in recent years. The solutions to the problems of tomorrow will still be solved, but I'm more concerned about whether or not there will be a dawn for human consciousness tomorrow. Already, reality is seeking to blend into a virtual space (I'll have another post on Meta soon), and we seem to live our lives numbing out the conflict which pushes humans to their very best. Perhaps that is because it's so intrinsically tied into the Fundamental Problem, and therefore tied into the root of human misery, but that doesn't mean we can disregard the loss of the ability which defines us as humans.

Now, it may be true that the ability will never be truly lost. Despite our best efforts, our subconscious seems uninterested with our attempts to thwart its secret musings, and our consciousness eventually seeps into whatever medium we're using to numb it. Some people solve this issue by using more and more until there is a terminal end to both aspects of their mind, at least to our perception. Others don't use more, but just ignore the issue until it drives them into a crisis, likely in the late night or early morning, when the world is dark and there is no rescue from its unbelievable breadth.

Yet there exists a way in which we can combat our desire to shut out the great mysteries of the universe. As sardonic as it sounds, this solution is simply to accept the supernatural size of both the universe and our own consciousness. Don't consider the vastness of the cosmos and feel its mass crushing you as you shrink back into thoughts about how small you are and how pathetic human kind's little space missions are. Instead, feel blessed that a creature as small as you can witness the beauty of the universe, and can even strive to reach it one day. Invest yourself in the fast-paced and awe-inspiring world of scientific advancement, where the seeds of hope for our future are planted, and where the hazy clouds are cleared for us to witness the dawn of tomorrow. Of course, science is not without its horrors, but when confronted with these strange machinations, move towards nature and appreciate that you, whatever "you" are, are able to witness the multitude of elegant faces nature can assume. Finally, when it comes to dealing with the depths of your own consciousness and its enigmatic roots, I find it's helpful, perhaps paradoxically, not to burden oneself with a lot of philosophy, especially if it's western in nature. Eastern philosophy is decidedly more spiritual than most of its western comrades, but in that spirituality is a peaceful hope which gets lost in the dreary writing of some western philosophers. Introspect and reflect, of course, but don't overthink and torture yourself with worry. God may be lost, but being lost is a temporary state of being, and one which often precedes reaching a place which is better than the one you left.