Different in degree or kind (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, November 05, 2013, 17:45 (4036 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: We have discussed this ad nauseam. We have agreed that the first cause must be energy. You insist that this has always been self-aware. How come? That is one insoluble mystery. My panpsychist hypothesis is that unconscious energy evolved individual awarenesses within (and because of) the changing forms of matter that it produced. How come? That is another insoluble mystery. How chance can assemble the ingredients for life and consciousness is another insoluble mystery. Come to think of it, I'm not sure what first cause atheists suggest ... maybe they'd settle for unconscious energy too. You're right, though ... all three point to a mysterious, unknowable, hidden whatever. But yours is a single, self-aware whatever ... no more and no less mysterious than the others.-We don't even know how the genome makes a phenotype. Talk about mysterious. There has to be a plan. Using our reality as a guide, plans come from intelligence. Unfortunately our brains eem to conjure up consciousness through changing DNA within the neuron, and all of it is probably acting at a quantum mechanical level, which we don't understand either. Amorphous disorganized energy is not a candidate for a reasonable theory, but a reasonable theory forces you to choose between chance and design.