Theistic evolution vs. Darwinism (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, May 29, 2013, 13:02 (3984 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: An additional thought about chance explanations for the complexity of life:-"The truly extraordinary claim — indeed, the wildly and irresponsibly outrageous claim — is that a highly scalable, massively parallel system architecture incorporating a 4-bit digital coding system and a super-dense, information-rich, three-dimensional, multi-layered, multi-directional database structure with storage, retrieval and translation mechanisms, utilizing file allocation, concatenation and bit-parity algorithms, operating subject to software protocol hierarchies could all come about through a long series of accidental particle collisions."-Under comments here:-http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/naturalism-intelligent-design-and-ext...-The whole point of my panpsychist hypothesis is that none of the above came about by chance! If you wish to argue that the intelligences that created them came about by chance, you may as well argue (as Tony pointed out) that your God also came about by chance, in the sense that first cause energy somehow happened to be conscious of itself and therefore happened to be able to invent life etc. Lucky us.-DAVID: And your argument: chaotic energy....matter....less chaotic energy....some information...less chaotic energy....more information....less chaotic energy ....better matter.....some intelligence.....etc... to the present.-These repetitions, though designed to look as messy as possible, are a reasonably accurate description of the evolutionary process.
 
DAVID: Really? From zilch to the complexity described in the quote. Pipedream. I ascribe to an intelligence first theory. At least it makes sense. It fits both necessity and possibility in Aristotelian philosophy.-But it does not explain where your first supreme "intelligence" came from, any more than my hypothesis explains where the first lesser "intelligence" came from. The complexity itself does not arrive from zilch, but in both hypotheses from the first awareness (your divine or my panpsychist version). The article you have quoted contains the following:-"Now from the vantage point of intelligent design, treated strictly as a scientific inquiry, no theological or atheological position has a privileged place. Intelligent design, as a scientific research program, attempts to determine whether certain features of the natural world exhibit signs of having been designed by an intelligence. This intelligence could be E.T. or a telic principle immanent in nature or a transcendent personal agent. These are all, at least initially, live options...Forget about the term supernatural and the presuppositional baggage it carries. What if the designing intelligence(s) responsible for biological complexity cannot be confined to physical objects? Why should that burst the bounds of science?...But the contrast between natural and supernatural causes is the wrong contrast. The proper contrast is between undirected natural causes on the one hand and intelligent causes on the other...Design has no prior commitment against naturalism or for supernaturalism. Consequently, science can offer no principled grounds for excluding design or relegating it to the sphere of religion."-(The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design, William A. Dembski, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL 2004, pp 188-190)-BBella would like the bit about ET intelligence, and the reference to "the designing intelligence(s) responsible for biological complexity" not confined to physical objects fits in with the concept of intelligence(s) ... note the possible plural ... as energy within but not dependent on those physical objects. A "telic principle immanent in nature" could also refer to awareness evolving in matter. There is nothing in this whole article that contradicts the panpsychist hypothesis I have suggested, which SUPPORTS the case for design, but not the case for your own single, "transcendent, personal agent".