Greta
N. The sun is considered the child of the Good. Where the light of the sun is responsible for our visible facts, the light of the Good is the source of consciousness and meaning within our universe. Plato's analogy of the Sun and the Divided Line clarifies this but requires a mind open to a universal perspective and not limited to a secular perspective.
G. It requires more than an open mind, Nicholas, it required a definition of the capitalised "Good".
Re: a universal perspective. The universe is, if it's conscious as you posit (and my guess is you are at least 100 billion years early in believing so), then it's going to love everything and everyone within it because we're all part of Team Universe - there is nothing else. It's not as though it can be infected with parasites - it's ostensibly a closed system (although some aspects of the CMB suggest that's also a premature assumption).
To the universe there would be various tiny innocent beings oblivious to the degree of their smallness... bless their l'il cotton socks ... small creatures doing clever tricks as they collectively slowly wind their way towards whatever maturity may be.
There are those like Greta who limit themselves through the security of superficiality and those who can become open to contemplate the big picture. What is the Good?
Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
Why is the light good? How can there be light when the sun doesn’t exist yet? Plato refers to the GOOD and so does the Bible. Why? What does it take to truly understand?
Greta believes consciousness arises from the small. Plotinus describes the first level of existence, of conscious intelligence, as the first devolution into creation. Nous is the highest form of conscious intelligence within creation and all of spirit in matter descends from nous. Greta says it arises in some sort of mysterious way from below. The universlist vs. the secular perspective. Contemplation of the intelligence of the whole as opposed to the glorification of its parts as the ultimate reality. Many will say “why bother?” It is far easier just to condemn Trump in the belief that one is saying something meaningful.
https://www.iep.utm.edu/plotinus/
b. The Intelligence
The Intelligence (Nous) is the true first principle -- the determinate, referential 'foundation' (arkhe) -- of all existents; for it is not a self-sufficient entity like the One, but rather possesses the ability or capacity to contemplate both the One, as its prior, as well as its own thoughts, which Plotinus identifies with the Platonic Ideas or Forms (eide). The purpose or act of the Intelligence is twofold: to contemplate the 'power' (dunamis) of the One, which the Intelligence recognizes as its source, and to meditate upon the thoughts that are eternally present to it, and which constitute its very being. The Intelligence is distinct from the One insofar as its act is not strictly its own (or an expression of self-sufficiency as the 'act' of self-reflection is for the One) but rather results in the principle of order and relation that is Being -- for the Intelligence and Being are identical (V.9.
. The Intelligence may be understood as the storehouse of potential being(s), but only if every potential being is also recognized as an eternal and unchangeable thought in the Divine Mind (Nous). As Plotinus maintains, the Intelligence is an independent existent, requiring nothing outside of itself for subsistence; invoking Parmenides, Plotinus states that "to think and to be are one and the same" (V.9.5; Parmenides, fragment 3). The being of the Intelligence is its thought, and the thought of the Intelligence is Being. It is no accident that Plotinus also refers to the Intelligence as God (theos) or the Demiurge (I.1.
, for the Intelligence, by virtue of its primal duality -- contemplating both the One and its own thought -- is capable of acting as a determinate source and point of contemplative reference for all beings. In this sense, the Intelligence may be said to produce creative or constitutive action, which is the provenance of the Soul.