Darwins doubt (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, July 17, 2013, 18:47 (4147 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

David: My contention is that inorganic plasma of the early universe could not invent consciousness and the intelligence therein by chance. C&I had to already exist and simply re-created itself through an evolution of the universe.-TONY: A better question is, how could we get to a state of inorganic plasma without the laws that govern the formation of inorganic plasma already in effect? How can you have a law without intelligent formation of said law? No matter which way we go, we will wind up in a series of infinite regressions, which become less and less answerable with each successive step.-All the way back to David's beloved "first cause" energy, which we assume has been there for ever and ever, doing whatever eternal energy does with itself. David thinks it was always conscious of itself. How? No idea! Tony, you think that may be so, or it may have become conscious of itself, and then created the laws that led to life on Earth. How? No idea! An atheist thinks it has never been conscious of itself, but after an eternity of mindless goings-on, just happened by chance to create the laws etc. How? No idea! My brand of atheist panpsychist thinks it has never been conscious of itself, but after an eternity of mindless goings-on created matter in which individual pockets of itself evolved intelligences that combined to create the laws etc. How? No idea!-Sounds to me like a pretty good case for agnosticism!-DAVID: Put another way, it is obvious that astrophysical findings follow very set rules. Who made the rules? Infinite regress always comes back to that same point. Can we ever assume that at some point no rules existed? Did the rules invent themselves?-Did the superintelligence that invented the rules invent itself?