A being that does not represent the world has no conception of what representation might be like, since the being has no conceptions.
A being that lacks consciousness has no conception of what consciousness might be like. The being might have intentionality (our unconscious thoughts, after all, have intentionality), and so might have the contentful thought that there can be beings that have some crucial mental quality that goes beyond the unconscious being’s mentality.
A being that lacks will presumably has no consciousness of what rational will or responsibility might be like. Again, the being might have the concept of beings with “something more” in causation of activity by means of thought.
The distinctions between non-representing and representing, unconscious and conscious, and involuntary and voluntary involve immense qualitative and value gaps. In each of the three cases, we humans exemplify the higher of the two options. At the same time, we are not alone in all these on earth. We share representation with all living things, I suspect. We share consciousness with many animals. But responsibility, I suspect, is ours alone.
I find it implausible to think that we are at the qualitative apex of the space of valuable possibilities. It seems quite likely to me that there could be beings that differ from us in further fundamental valuable qualities in such a way that we are on the lower end, and if we were to meet these beings, we would be unable to grasp what they have which we lack, though we might on testimony, or maybe even empirical observation of behavior, conclude that there is such a thing.
In fact, I suspect there are infinitely many such distinctions, and that God is beyond the higher side of all of them.
In heaven, might we be raised to have the further higher levels? Maybe, but maybe not. However, the mere epistemic possibility of us being gradually raised to acquire infinitely many further such irreducible values is enough to undercut any “argument from boredom” against eternal heavenly life.
Assuming there are infinitely many more such non-V and V pairs, I wonder what this infinity is. Does it have a cardinality?
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