I would like to open up my podcast to more discussions of philosophy and the age-old question of consciousness and matter.
I invite respected philosophers such as panpsychist Philip Goff, Phil Halper, Alex O’Connor, and Robert Lawrence Kuhn, as well as theists, atheists, and anyone who would like to engage in this discussion.
We need to take dualism more seriously — not simply the substance dualism of David Chalmers, the mechanical dualism of Descartes, or the hierarchical dualism of Plato — all of which are conceptually asymmetric, with one side privileged — but the idea that the cosmos is fundamentally a dyad and not a monad, with two active principles of mind and matter that come together to create reality, as described by the Hindu model of Shiva-Shakti, or the Egyptian Isis and Osiris.
I will make the case for duotheism: that both God and Goddess must be reconciled to create a coherent model of the cosmos, similar in some respects (but not all) to Alfred North Whitehead's dipolar God.
The current zeitgeist on consciousness generally sticks to one of two positions.
Scientific materialism (or physicalism) holds that we live in a purely material world where consciousness emerges as a product of evolution and complex biology. There is no spiritual realm, God, or a soul, and most religious belief is largely superstition. Materialism is fundamentally atheist.
The usual alternative is idealism: matter arises from mind, and consciousness is the fundamental substrate of reality. Idealism suits a monotheist worldview, in which the one true God creates the material world. This is the typical position for Christians and Muslims who describe an omnipotent and all-knowing God who created the universe.
These arguments have gone around in circles for centuries: monotheists vs. atheists, materialists vs. idealists, with neither side winning a convincing victory. I find both perspectives unconvincing and incomplete — and believe that neither offers a coherent worldview.
I enjoyed the recent discussion on Phil Halper’s philosophy channel by a group of physicalists who attempted to debunk Philip Goff and panpsychism, which is the view that consciousness is pervasive in the cosmos and is the underlying substrate of the material world.
I did not find their critiques convincing, and I would be happy to discuss why with them.
To me, panpsychism should be understood as a dyad: the cosmos has two interacting parts — though most panpsychists, like Goff, are idealists. I disagree with both the physicalists and the idealists. I believe both sides are incomplete.
The dyad offers a coherent worldview with a simple model. Just as a human has a mind and a body, each influencing the other, so too does the entire cosmos. This comports with ancient and widespread traditions of polytheism and animism — and specifically with God and Goddess, mind and matter.
In Goddess traditions, the Mother Goddess is the material world (Mother Nature, Mother Earth), while God the Father is immaterial; he is mind, the source of ideas, the creator.
Mother is matter: the words share the same Latin root, mater.
The terms God and Goddess are poetic symbols; we could just as easily say mind and matter, but gods provide more avenues for storytelling, and it is easier to remember a story than a theory.
The Hindu principle of Shiva-Shakti describes this dyad in detail. This view is ancient, surviving millennia of philosophical debate and violent rejection by Muslim and Christian monotheists alike — and yet the ideas remain standing, as strong as ever.
In this worldview, Shiva is pure, eternal source consciousness, permeating the cosmos, neither created nor destroyed.
Shakti is source matter — chaotic and formless in her raw state, yet fundamentally circular: the eternal cycle of creation and destruction.
In Hindu terms, Shakti is the mass, energy, and physics of material science, endlessly cycling. This circularity is a decisive distinction from Western thought, which leans towards linear thinking.
As a general rule, Hindus present their deities in male-female pairs. The female is Shakti, and every goddess is drawn from this same source.
The male deity is mind, the immaterial source of forms, rooted in ideas, as Plato described.
Without matter, mind is powerless and impotent — disembodied, unable to act on the material world. And without the mind, matter remains chaotic and formless.
They need each other; physics meets the Platonic form, and reality is the emergent property.
God is the creator; Goddess is the raw material.
She is the chaotic waters of creation in Genesis 1, also seen in Egypt and India.
Everything he creates, she ultimately destroys.
Both are active; both have power and authority of their own.
Together they form an axis — like a cosmic hurricane spinning around an infinite column of fire, expanding and contracting through the eons in circular time.
The Maya measured time this way; so do the Hindus.
God is linear and hierarchical, bringing centralized authority. Goddess is circular and horizontal, bringing decentralized cooperation. They join to create the whole. Nature demonstrates that both hierarchy and cooperation are active principles in the web of life.
In this model, God is not omnipotent; there are limits to his powers, a position that Philip Goff has presented, and that I believe resolves many of the philosophical problems with monotheism, such as the existence of suffering and death.
I am both a dualist and a non-dualist — I embrace the paradox. Hindus teach that a singular reality, Brahman, connects us all, but reality is a fabric woven of warp and weft threads: mind and matter, both active and pulsating.
These are some of the ideas we discuss in Goddess Bible Study, and I’d welcome the chance to explore them with more philosophers.
Reach out to join our chat group on Signal.
lostgoddess.io@gmail.com
I'm glad you're putting this out there. I also think much of what you've said here is too "neat and tidy" and that many of the elemental qualities assigned to the Goddess and God aspects of the dyad belong to both. We look to myths and see that in many, many cases. As we know through observation of how life works, we see that while She is capable of destroying, it is She who creates, gives life, nurtures.