The Religion War Read Online Free PDF Page B

is in the universe, say in a teacup handle, it's not retrievable, so it's not the same thing as real knowledge."
    The Avatar was pleased with the level of interest the interrogator showed. "Would you agree that if you could make the universe any size you wanted, with no constraints whatsoever— say a trillion times larger than you imagine it to be—that eventually you would get a pattern in some corner of the universe that was the equal, in ones and zeros, to all of Shakespeare's plays?"
    "No, I don't agree. Maybe the simple patterns are out there, but not the more complicated ones. It's just too unlikely."
    "Complicated patterns are nothing but simple patterns combined. For example, if you know that a monkey can be trained, and you understand the concept of a hat, you already know you can probably train a monkey to wear a hat, even if that information does not yet exist anywhere in the universe. Knowledge is the potential to bring simple information into consciousness and combine it," explained the Avatar.
    "It has to be more than potential," said the interrogator.
    "Does it? Consider your own so-called knowledge. Your conscious mind uses only the tiniest scoop of your total knowledge— whatever you are thinking at the moment. Everything else that you know is just an arrangement of matter in your brain that couldpotentially be retrieved but most of it never will. For example, your brain might contain the name of a grade school acquaintance that you will never again think about. You would consider that knowledge even though it will never be retrieved. Your own knowledge is similar to the universe's knowledge, mostly potential, not actual."
    "You're making my head hurt I'm not sure I'm following all this, but I know you have a huge hole in your thinking.There's no consciousness controlling all of this random stuff in the universe. You can't have God without consciousness," said the interrogator.
    "Define 'consciousness,'" responded the Avatar.
    "Well, you know, it's when you're conscious.You know what you're doing and you feel you're doing stuff intentionally," tried the interrogator.
    "So you have a sensation of consciousness. Fair enough. But how do you know if I'm conscious? Can you tell by observing me?" asked the Avatar.
    "Not really. Ijust assume you're a human like me, so you must have consciousness too."
    "So how would you know God was conscious, even if he stood in front of you?" asked the Avatar.
    "Hmmm." The interrogator paused, gathering his thoughts. "I guess I couldn't tell from his actions, because there's no way to know how God would react to any situation. I mean, he wouldn't be afraid or hungry or curious, so he'd have no obvious motives to compare against what he did. I guess the only way I'd know is ifhe decided to tell me he was conscious, probably through some kind of messenger or angel or prophet or something."
    "Allow me to give you a more workable definition of consciousness," said the Avatar.
    "Okay," said the interrogator, sitting back in his chair, relieved.
    "You say you know you're conscious because you have the sensation of consciousness, although you can't quite put your finger on it. Let's agree that the sensation is part of the package, but only a by-product," said the Avatar.
    "What else is there?" asked the interrogator.
    "Consciousness is a feedback loop," explained the Avatar. "It has four parts: You imagine the impact of your action, then you act, then you observe the actual result of your action, then you store that knowledge in your brain and begin again to imagine the next thing. All of those steps have a physical component, including the imagining—meaning that your brain is having chemical and electrical activity—so it's no wonder that you have a sensation that you call consciousness," explained the Avatar.
    "You make it sound so simple," said the interrogator.
    "Does it sound wrong?" asked the Avatar.
    "No. I just hadn't thought about it before," confessed the