A Panpsychist Hypothesis (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, June 24, 2014, 11:24 (3804 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I've simply been trying to point out that your God hypothesis is no more logical than the alternative which you have dismissed. The only intelligence we know of (our own and that of our fellow creatures) is a potential that develops accumulatively through experience of things that already exist.
DAVID: This is an anthropomorphic analysis. First cause (God) need not follow this humanized example. My first cause has consciousness and the necessary information to start a universe and start life from inorganic matter.-What's wrong with an anthropomorphic analysis? How do you know that the creation doesn't mirror the creator? You are quite right that first cause "need not" follow the humanized example. Similarly it "need not" follow the conventional religious pattern that you are offering us of an eternally conscious being that knows how to create a universe and life even before it has created the first blob of matter. I'm offering alternatives, whereas you are insisting that only one version is correct (see below).-dhw: I'm glad to see that "trial and error" is becoming more prominent in your argument, as opposed to the know-it-all version of your God.....If you are now saying that he did NOT have all the information, but gradually learned from his experiences with matter, you can allow for the possibility (which is all I'm asking) that eternal energy had no information at all until it turned into matter. The two hypotheses then begin to converge.
DAVID: Again the same mistake in analysis. -You can only talk of "mistakes" if you know the correct version. You don't, and you have admitted that your version depends on faith.
 
DAVID: If I am working backward from what I see, I think First Cause (God) had consciousness and information before creating the universe and life. Creation implies that requirement. However, I know evolutionary processes were used for both the universe and for development of life's variety. Threfore it is entirely possible that some information had to be developed during the evolutions, which info was then acted upon.-This is a welcome volte face since the days when you were dismissing as a "non-starter" the idea of your God experimenting, because it made him into an indecisive ditherer. Your admission of the possibility of trial and error and development of information in the creation both of the universe and of life clearly allows for the possibility that first cause energy did NOT have the necessary information to start a universe and start life from inorganic matter, but had to ACQUIRE it. And this makes it possible that the intelligence of first cause energy evolved in exactly the same way as our own intelligence ... expanding its potential as it gained information. There is no "mistake" here ... just two equally weird possibilities: eternal energy which knew it all; eternal energy which had to learn.
 
DAVID: Do not cloud your mind with religions' view of God as all-knowing, present and into the future, and all-powerful. -An astonishing piece of advice from someone who until recently insisted that God knew and had planned everything in advance - advice now being offered to someone who has suggested a version of origins that is diametrically opposed to the above!-DAVID: I think your childhood background in religion clouds your ability to analyze. Start from a fresh beginning, avoid humanizing, and you might come up with my pattern of thought.-Physician, heal thyself! While I continue to delve into the various alternatives, having faith in none of them, you have been fighting tooth and nail to preserve the religious image of an eternally conscious power magically endowed with all the information and experience necessary to build life and a universe. Ah David, start from a fresh beginning, avoid idealizing, and you might be able to think outside the box you have made for yourself.