Theistic evolution vs. Darwinism (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, June 09, 2013, 14:45 (4186 days ago) @ David Turell

BBELLA: I'm thinking consciousness is not energy but inhabits energy [...] Maybe what David is referencing as God is just simply consciousness, that which permeates all that is, yet is not all that is, itself.-DAVID: Free-floating consciousness without energy doesn't seem possible to me. What dhw will not do is accept the idea that my conscious energy is purposeful in and of itself.-David's first cause energy has always been conscious to the nth degree, and like him I can't see how one can separate the two. His God is within and without the universe, so presumably "permeates all that is", in contrast to my panpsychist alternative. In this, consciousness does not mean humanly or divinely self-conscious, which is why I generally prefer the vaguer word "intelligence". My starting point is exactly as David describes: "the basis of all creation is energy, matter being a form of energy in a more solid state". However, instead of "conscious energy is the start of everything", we have non-conscious energy generating matter and also "inhabiting" matter. Matter takes on countless forms, though these are always individual, and matter never stays the same. My hypothesis is that, since consciousness needs to be conscious of SOMETHING, individual energies within individual matter became conscious of change. (Weird, but no weirder than energy having always been conscious to the nth degree, or chance combining materials to generate life and consciousness.) Once energy inhabiting matter becomes "intelligent", it learns to manipulate matter. And so while I would say energy "inhabits" matter, I would again say that energy and consciousness are inseparable, with the important proviso that while energy can exist without consciousness, consciousness cannot exist without energy.-Consciousness or "intelligence" according to this hypothesis does not "permeate all that is". It began as isolated pockets of intelligent energy within different forms of matter, but as the universe has evolved, so the number and variety of intelligences has expanded. Evolution itself depends on their cooperation, and as they combine, so the scale, depth, knowledge, experience also expand. And maybe when the matter disintegrates and once more becomes energy, that energy might possibly retain all the knowledge and experience it had gathered during its habitation of matter (I'm linking up now with psychic experiences like NDEs). -David therefore begins with a single form of energy already, mysteriously, endowed with supreme self-awareness, and "purposeful in and of itself". My alternative begins with no consciousness followed, equally mysteriously, by pockets of energy in matter becoming intelligent, and then developing ever more complex forms of intelligence, leading to our own consciousness of consciousness of consciousness. These forms may all have their own individual purposes (hence every innovation), but there is no overall purpose guiding them.