Voided

 

"My dear Ganesh, I don´t think the atheist-materialists
are ready to hear about what´s beyond
the initial singularity quite yet!"

A propos Carrier´s essay, which I link to in the blog post immidiately before this one.

It struck me that Carrier´s ideas are compatible with materialism being false *except* on the highest level, if "space" and "time" are interpreted as material "things". But whatever the initial near-nothing state collapses into need not be material. It may just as well be spiritual, so long as it exists within spacetime. Now, the god of process theology seem to exist within spacetime (at least on one interpretation). So even a personal god is possible on this scenario, as long as he isn´t properly transcendent. A universal spirit or soul would also be possible, as long as it´s immanent within spacetime. 

And that raises another question: what is the character of spacetime itself? What if spacetime is somehow "divine"? If immanent "gods" can emerge from the void of empty space and eternal time, maybe this spacetime isn´t a complete void, but has some kind of deep structure. And even if it´s random, what is to say that we don´t live in a universe filled with superhuman creatures, supernatural forces and morphic resonance? It certainly looks that way, I mean people see shit all the time.

There are certainly religions with this perspective: all phenomena are "empty" and arise spontaneously out of the Void. But I can´t help thinking that there is something else out there, or in here, or wherever. Something that transcends and voids even the Void...