But what seems particularly difficult for consciousness to grapple with [and then to grasp] is the possibility that this meaning is derived only from the illusion of free will.
Just as I seem to embody meaning in my dreams only to wake up and realize that however much “I” seemed to be utterly real in the dream, it was only a “me” constructed entirely by my brain.
The most mysterious thing here [for me] revolves around encounting those who actually imagine that how they think about all this is the way it actually all is!
Some then extend this – what I construe to be an objectivist mentality – to the is/ought world. And then on into an imagined immortality and salvation.
Thus to the extent that someone like Dawkins argues that he has already explained human consciousness, is, in my view, just another rendition of the psychology of objectivism. Only he has indeed invested a great deal of time and effort in thinking these things through. Better that than all those who make all manner of preposterous claims based on one or another religious or metaphysical dogma.
Also, I think it revolves around a need to believe that it can be accomplished. After all, only if one is able to think themselves into believing that this is possible, can they then think themselves into believing that they have in fact already accomplished it.
And it is this belief that allows them to believe in turn that “I” was not merely thrown fortuotously at birth into an essentially meaningless world. Instead, there does exist some teleological font they can anchor “I” to.
And I’m not arguing that there isn’t, only that “here and now” my own particular “I” is no longer able to think myself into believing it.
Like you, I am basically an agnostic here. Only I keep coming back to two components of my own existence that seem clearly beyond my reach:
1] understanding the extent to which “I” is autonomous
2] understanding the gap between what “I” think here and now and all that can be understood about existence itself
This of course becomes entangled in political narratives entangled in assumptions made about the relationship between genes and memes entangled in assumptions made about gender roles ever evolving over time and space historically and culturally.
Here I am in turn an agnostic.
Down in this hole I have dug for myself morally.