Panpsychism (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, December 16, 2012, 12:46 (4150 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The creation of these responses, and indeed of every innovation you can think of, is indeed the wonder. Was their creation the result of God interfering, God preprogramming every single detail (which he would have to do if the mechanism itself didn't take the decisions), blind chance (= random mutations), or the innovative but unselfconscious intelligence of the cells forming new combinations? Four hypotheses. Take your pick, or sit on the fence with me.-hy: Nice capsule distillation dhw. [...] The fourth one seems to be least bizarre (just barely)...-DAVID: I still go back to the observation that all of reality develops by evolutionary processes. 
I agree.-DAVID: The issue for dhw really is does God tinker or set the processes up and watch? 
That is NOT the issue for me! We agree that the first cause is energy of some kind. The issue for me is whether that energy is self-aware (theism), totally unaware (atheism), or with a degree of intelligence/ consciousness that does NOT include self-awareness. Only if the primeval energy is self-aware does the tinkering/watching option apply.
 
DAVID: There is evidence for both; for example, the asteroid that did in the dinosaurs looks like tinkering, but the other way of looking at it is simply to say that eventually an asteroid would have come along to do the deed. After all we are still worried about a big space rock hitting us now. we can see them out there in the asteroid belt.
 
If an asteroid simply came along WITHOUT God's control, it doesn't say much for his supposed planning of the course of evolution. You can just imagine it: "Damn, after all those millions of years perfecting the dinosaurs, and this happens! Ah well, let's try something different." Alternatively: "Yippee, I knew one would come along sooner or later." One wonders what else was outside his control.
 
DAVID: As for 'intelligent' cells joining together, my same old question: where did the information come from to make them intelligent? Where are the central controls to organize a proper cooperation? Panpsychism is not at a cellular level, but at an organismal level, if it exists at all.-A valid question to which no-one knows the answer (see above for first cause options). But hardly one that invalidates the suggestion that they ARE intelligent. And if they are, they don't need central control ... they organize themselves, though maybe like ants and bees there are decision-makers and followers. As I've tried to make clear, this would be the case whether God created them or not, unless God either interfered or preprogrammed every single innovation. How does one distinguish between cellular and organismal, since organisms are composed of cells? Your distinction simply means that panpsychism operates at the level of cell communities. That's OK with me.