Response to salyavin808 Thanks for your considered replies.
Re "I don't get why consciousness is reserved such a pedestal just because it is currently unexplained.": Lots of things are unexplained. But what they all have in common is that they are occurrences we witness *in consciousness* - the consciousness of you, me or scientists. What makes "awareness" itself unique is that in this case we are talking about what is registering all the other (explained or unexplained) phenomena. How we make the jump from an objective world *out there* to our experience of colour, sound, warmth, love, beauty, . . . , is a question of a completely different order than those other queries. We don't even know what kind of answer we're looking for. If awareness is fundamental or basic, and so irreducible to other facts, that puzzlement over how to engage with the issue evaporates. From the get-go, consciousness is the *inner* aspect of what exists; just as space and time are the *outer* aspects. (Spinoza) Re "All design arguments are pointless because they require all the potential intelligence and complexity in the universe to have existed before the universe did because God must know what he wanted.": I no-doubt misled you by using the term "design argument". That's the label used for arguments which are sceptical of purely materialist explanations for how the order we see arose. I don't think "God" did know what He wanted in advance! God is better seen as the Supreme Artist. He didn't know how things would turn out in future; He's adapting the artwork as it evolves over time (see "process theology"). (It would take the discussion too far afield but you have to distinguish between "God immanent" - Who is learning as He goes along; and "God transcendent" - to Whom all past, present and future "present moments" are available and so He knows that all things shall be well.)
