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

by dhw, Tuesday, February 05, 2013, 20:15 (4307 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: There is a whole section of theological thought that describes God as very simple. It is the result of that simplicity's actions that you view as very complex.
dhw: How do the theologians know? And why do you believe them?
DAVID: This becomes an area of faith-based reasoning, which is beyond your position. It is logical once a first cause of this type is accepted. God is a simple concept, His results are very complex.-So life and the human mind are too complex not to have been designed, but the universal, eternal, self-aware, planning mind which you think created them and the universe is undesigned and simple. And self-awareness is a simpler concept than lack of self-awareness, since you claim that the theory of deliberate creation is simpler than the chance and panpsychism theories. I can see the "faith-based", but I'm struggling with the "reasoning"!-Dhw: [...] 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 that by intellect you mean a self-aware intelligence.)
DAVID: Information is of several types: descriptive, or analytic; functional or planning; historical or retrospective. There are probably more forms of information but you can see that the word information is very encompassing. For God or first cause I can believe in a planning, analytic mind as a source of the info needed. If chance doesn't work, and you doubt that it does, than planning must occur. And that plan must be analyzed by a thoughtful self-aware mind. That is how my mind works, and I assume the universal mind is a pattern for mine.-Then your argument should not be that only an intellect can create information. You mean that only an intellect can plan. Agreed. However, that is the whole point of our discussion. Are the universe and life on Earth the result of planning, or of a higgledy-piggledy process of experimentation (by a self-aware experimenter), or of a higgledy-piggledy process of evolution (by chance, or by matter that is intelligent but not self-aware)?
 
dhw: David, you cite the complexity of the first living cells as your reason for not believing in chance ... and I'm certainly not going to disagree with you. I would just like to point out yet again that a single, universal, eternal, self-aware creative mind is not the only possible explanation. In my post of 4 February at 12.39, as requested, I described an alternative process of evolution on a cosmic scale (rather less scientific than Smolin's!) through "intelligent" but not self-aware matter. Your ... to me surprising ... response is reproduced at the start of this post. I can only repeat that all these theories (God, chance, variants of panpsychism) require faith, and I really cannot see why one faith should take precedence over another.-DAVID: 'Self-aware matter', as a theory, is simply an extension of my UI as in pansychism. -Panpsychism does not stipulate self-awareness or even a mind. It stipulates "varying degrees in which things have inner subjective or quasi-conscious aspects, some very unlike what we experience as consciousness" (Oxford Companion to Philosophy). That's why I have summed it up as "intelligence" (in inverted commas) without self-awareness. (NB I'm not a panpsychist. I'm merely putting the idea forward as an equally likely/unlikely alternative.)-DAVID: My table is not aware of anything. My computer is, and living matter certainly is. But neither of the latter have the kind of self-awareness I have. I don't know how to define 'intelligent but not self-aware matter'. My dog fits that phrase to a degree. -Exactly. "To a degree". (See the above definition.) Just like cells combining intelligently to form new organs, though we doubt if they are self-aware. What you attribute to a single, self-aware, planning mind may be the product of billions of "intelligent" though unselfconscious interactions between "things". I don't know how to define this form of intelligence either ... the whole concept is beyond definition and indeed beyond our comprehension. So is God's "universal mind", but you do not reject that theory on the grounds of indefinability and incomprehensibility.-DAVID: To me true planning intelligence requires a mind that is introspective, not my dog's. And you saw how I answered George. Information is not self-creating. It must have a source. This is the nub of the entire Intelligent Design thesis.-I agree that true planning intelligence requires an introspective mind, but "planning" is the nub of the controversy surrounding Intelligent Design. And yes, information must have a source, but that does not mean it has to be deliberately created by a single, self-aware universal intellect. Your starting-point is always an assumption based on your faith, and I can't fault your reasoning once you build on that basic premise. It's the basic premise itself that is under scrutiny.-****-DAVID: Great summary of why the origin of life is a miracle:
http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/01/28/atheistic-science-is-rapidly-sinking-in-the-quicks...-It certainly is ... a great summary AND a miracle! Many thanks for this.