Afterlife (Endings)

by dhw, Monday, January 14, 2013, 13:15 (4329 days ago) @ David Turell

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).-DAVID: 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.
 
Your argument is based on the assumption that there is a goal. Tony says we don't know what it is, and I presume you don't either, and Dawkins would say there is no goal. Your version is, of course, possible. But if the first cause is eternal, impersonal, unconscious energy (your own UI must also go back before the Big Bang) which has for ever and ever been forming different combinations of matter, sooner or later its scattergun, goalless approach might hit the bullseye of a life-giving combination. That version too is possible. I find both versions equally unlikely.-DAVID: Life requires complicated codes based on an enormous amount of information. Only intellect or mind can create that information.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. -DAVID: 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.-See above. If one is confronted by two almost inconceivable scenarios (an eternal lottery vs. an eternal intelligence), there can be no obvious conclusions. It requires faith to opt for one and not the other.
 
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.
DAVID: I feel I have arrived at the same intuitive conclusion.-Good. Two days ago, you quite rightly wrote that "it doesn't require intuition to realize that there is something eternal", but went on to say "I can't imagine or have any intuition about a UI. I only know it HAS to exist." Faced with two equally unlikely scenarios, I am unable to arrive at that "intuitive conclusion".-dhw: But if neither intellect nor imagination nor intuition can provide grounds for faith, what can?
DAVID: 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.-I do not insist on absolute proof, and I hope I've made it clear throughout five years of discussions on this forum that I do not expect it. But I do expect evidence that chance can create life before I believe such a hypothesis, and I do expect evidence that there is an eternal, universal, self-aware intelligence at work in the only world I know. You were absolutely right when you wrote: "It requires a strong faith to have faith in a concealed God." Faith does not depend on "absolute proof" ... if it did, you wouldn't need to have faith! But it does need more than inference and conjecture. In your case, the "intuitive conclusion" may be a hint; BBella consistently emphasizes the importance of her own personal experiences (I've run out of time to reply to your post today, BBella. Sorry.). However, David, you have the advantage over me. If there isn't an afterlife, I shall never have the chance to say I told you so.