Natural Teleology: More Thomas Nagel (The limitations of science)

by dhw, Monday, February 04, 2013, 12:39 (4308 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw:I don't agree that only an intellect can create information. Information is everywhere, even in a grain of sand, though it takes an intellect of some kind to extract, evaluate and use it.-DAVID: A grain of sand is the result of erosion of rock which came from lava orginally. It has a crystallin structure, which is pretty but does not contain information of any use other than descriptive.-It is also sometimes possible to say where certain types of sand come from (useful in forensic science?), and for me all of that counts as information. As is so often the case, a buzz word enters the debate, and today it's "information". Descriptive information is information, so what do you mean by "information" when you say only an intellect can create it? (I presume by "intellect" you mean a self-aware intelligence.)-dhw: Your version is a single planning mind right from the start; what I've described is not a single mind, and doesn't even lead to a single mind: it's an on-going process with an almost infinite number of different "minds" (in inverted commas, because they're not minds as we know them ... just as your God is not a mind as we know it) constantly combining to form new "minds". You might call it process theology without God.
 
DAVID: Can you describe the 'process' in your theory? -The process in my 'theory' is an ongoing series of causes and effects, in which matter combines in different forms, each with its own individual "intelligence" (i.e. ability to create systems though almost certainly without self-awareness), resulting in a wider and wider variety of forms, with greater complexity and increasing "intelligence". It is evolution on a cosmic scale, which has led to what as far as we know is our own unique self-awareness.
 
DAVID: Your supposition is much more complex than my simple suggestion of a first cause mind.-I cannot see why the idea that matter combines itself in "intelligent" ways should be regarded as more complex than the idea of an infinite and eternal, self-aware intellect, with no provenance, that deliberately creates universes on the one hand and DNA on the other.