Afterlife (Endings)

by David Turell , Monday, January 14, 2013, 01:30 (4330 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: We have agreed that the first cause is energy. Recap: first cause energy may be self-aware, "intelligent" without self-awareness (a theory I offered under "Panpsychism"), or completely devoid of intelligence (one form of atheism).-The first cause cannot simply throw out an unplanned universe, without design. Design requires a thinking mind to analyze the plan. Look at Tony's current response to you. If there is a goal there is planning to reach that goal in the design of the plan. That planning mind is introspective; analysis requires self-awareness. 
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> DAVID: Life requires complicated codes based on an enormous amount of information. Only intellect or mind can create that information.
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> dhw:Complete agreement with your first sentence. I would rephrase the second: It seems almost inconceivable that this information could have been created by anything other than intellect or mind. I would then continue: ...just as it seems almost inconceivable that eternal and infinite energy can always have had or may have spontaneously engendered its own intellect or mind. -Fine. but what other scenario do you propose. How did the intellect appear? We don't know but it is an obvious conclusion that it must have always been there, eternally.
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> dhw: BBella, in my view quite rightly, attributes many people's faith to personal experience, and that I think includes an intuitive connection to a higher power.-I feel I have arrived at the same intuitive conclusion.
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> DAVID: I only know it HAS to exist. It is required to fit the logical conclusion that life's underlying information had to come from some thought process. 
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> dhw: May I quote you: "It requires a strong faith to have faith in a concealed God." There is more to your belief than logic.-But my faith comes from my logic that there can be no other answer.-
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> DAVID: Just because you can't imagine it, doesn't mean it is not there. 
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> dhw: Agreed. But if neither intellect nor imagination nor intuition can provide grounds for faith, what can?-Simple, the logic I have presented. It is the only answer that fits.There is no other approach except your willingness to insist only on absolute proof. Unfortunately for you there will never be such a proof. I'll meet you in the afterlife and tell you I told you so.