God as an Emergent Phenomenon

by dopeman421

The premise is this: the human brain produces consciousness. The brain is a complex collection of units, neurons, that, by themselves, have no characteristics of mind. However, their arrangement and interaction produces consciousness, a characteristic greater than the sum of its parts; consciousness is an emergent phenomenon. many aspects of the macroscopic world are like this.

So where do we draw the line between conscious matter and unconscious matter? Is any system of interacting parts conscious, to an extent? Atoms and cells, for instance? Or does it depend on sufficient complexity? are there degrees of consciousness? It's clear that to define consciousness by having human-like qualities would be anthrocentric, so it can't be ruled out that a system could "experience" the universe very differently than we do.

Could God be the human race as a whole? We are all complex systems, and we have a method of interaction (words & actions could be analagous to neurtransmitters). Could the system of society be conscious? This might come close to justifying the anthrocentric properties we ascribe to God.

Could God be the entire system of life on Earth? All life interacts, and if every living organism were a node/unit, that would make for a system much more complex than the human brain, at which point one can't help but wonder.

Could God be the universe itself? That would make for an omnipotent & omniscient entity; it must know & control all, for it IS all. Could photons be God's neurotransmitters?

There are, however, problems with this theory. Our consciousness is holistic; that is, we can only analyze and interact with the world around us in abstract ways, and we can only consider our own inner workings as such, as well. Would a larger construct also be unaware of its actual unitary components?