http://ranprieur.com/#9a417fe513f58988c3b5b1e84cfc57397194a79b 2024-07-01T13:10:58Z Ran Prieur http://ranprieur.com/ ranprieur@gmail.com http://ranprieur.com/#8ede632fa1c467e451b15bddd7036e456e9c25ad 2024-07-01T13:10:58Z July 1. Back to philosophy, I've written about the consciousness of animals and plants. But if we take psychism seriously, it opens all kinds of interesting doors. And if we take pagan metaphysics seriously, we have to wonder about the consciousness of gods. What is it like to be a god?

I can see three levels of answers. One is that gods exist purely as a behavior of human consciousness, as already understood by psychologists. So what it's like to be a god is simply what it's like to be a human believing in that god; and through known channels of communication, humans can decide what the gods are like and what they want.

If we go deeper, gods can exist in the human collective subconscious. If humans disappeared, they'd disappear too, but they can coordinate our behavior in ways that physicalism doesn't recognize, and without us being consciously aware of it. This answer seems most likely to me, and it could also apply to demonic possession.

Or they could exist on some level deeper than humans. We're an opportunity to them, but they don't need us. This is how it usually is in fiction, and you can see examples in the TV Tropes page for the Old Gods.

Notice that on all three levels, the gods are mutable. We could change our minds about them, or they could adapt to changing culture, or they could put on different masks. I tend to agree with Ezra Pound, who wrote, "The Gods have not returned. They have never left us."

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