God and Reality (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Saturday, June 22, 2013, 09:47 (3959 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I have suggested an infinite number of universes before the big bang.-DAVID: I think we can suppose an infinite number of universes in past eter
nity if we presume first cause is eternal. One universe at a time, with one set of humans at a time. I still stick to the premise that we can only impute to God only what we know He does, and no further, from the one example we know.-I really don't know why you assume that each universe would have been designed to produce humans. We have no idea what other forms of life could have been produced, either by God, or by an infinite number of chance combinations, or by energy evolving awareness within different forms of changing matter. But the object of my reference to earlier universes was to point out the illogicality of the claim that atheists only propose other universes in order to avoid the design theory, although you as a theist accept that there must have been other universes!-dhw: I have not invented any form of intelligence. I can only speculate on possible forms that others have proposed, and explain why I do not believe in any of them: 1) your God; 2) a panpsychist form that evolved within changing matter; 3) a chance combination (after an endless history of combinations) that gave rise to organic life, prior to which there was no intelligence.-DAVID: You have invented. Pansychism presumes inventing intelligence, in your scenario, as evolution progresses.-I can't follow this. I did not invent panpsychism. The version that I have proposed suggests that energy evolved some sort of awareness within changing matter. The basic tenet of panpsychism is that "there may be varying degrees in which things have inner subjective or quasi-conscious aspects, some very unlike what we experience as consciousness" (Oxford Companion to Philosophy). What have I invented?