Theistic evolution vs. Darwinism (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, May 24, 2013, 15:11 (4202 days ago) @ dhw

dhw:My agnosticism leaves me open to exploring all avenues, but I have yet to find one that leads to enlightenment!-There are many imponderables on the way to enlightenment. Unfortunately one comes to the chasm. The reasonable progress stops, there is a huge gap and something on the other side. The something on the other side will always require faith. This is a given. When you arrive in the afterlife, you will be surprised to find even atheists there.
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> dhw: As I've pointed out before, A.N Whitehead ... the leading figure in process theology ... blended forms of panpsychism and panentheism, though I can't claim to have understood what it was/is all about. His version has your God at its centre, whereas mine has no single universal intelligence, let alone one with a purpose. Your first cause energy is self-aware and supremely intelligent, and that is your great leap. My panpsychist first cause energy is blank: it makes matter which changes and eventually reverts back to energy, but through the process of change ... this is the leap ... it BECOMES aware within individual units of matter.-I have no idea how your leap works. We know how intelligence works because we have it. We experience consciousness. Your raw energy, by no plan makes matter, which is somehow organized enough to invent intelligence. Please pass the hashish pipe. I can perhaps see prior intelligence infusing intelligence into matter it creates. I have to start with some type of organization. The plasma of the very hot universe came first, no matter till much later. That plasma followed some rules we understand. The fact that there are rules at that point that we can discern implies an underlying intelligence to begin with.-
> dhw: Unlike materialism, this panpsychist hypothesis allows for psychic experiences, since energy is not bound forever to the materials in which it is embedded. -My beliefs allow for psychic experiences. I believe in human species consciousness, per Sheldrake. your contortions are unnessessary. -> 
> dhw: Nebulous? Yes, of course. Far too nebulous for me to take the leap. But I think both theists and atheists might find it difficult to ask questions of this hypothesis that are not equally applicable to their own.-Nebulous yes, but I don't find the questions in my belief system that you dredge up to thwart yourself.
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> dhw: However, I need to keep stressing that I do not believe in it, any more than I believe in chance or in David's eternal deity. ...... But perhaps it's our very differences that make us model citizens of the world, since differences are a far greater test of patience and tolerance than agreements could ever be!-I still hold to the position that your theory is simply a contorted version of mine. The only difference I see is your method of creation of intelligence and consciousness.I start with it at the beginning and you create it as things go along. We all get to the same end result. But to avoid God you sure get convoluted.