Contingent evolution (Introduction)

by GateKeeper , Wednesday, July 02, 2014, 16:26 (3797 days ago) @ dhw

Dhw: Perhaps you should reread Part One of the post with which I opened this thread: "According to David, "God is intelligence", is "both the particles and the organizer of the particles," and is "present in all that IS, living and inorganic"(BBella). This is the most extreme version of theistic panpsychism. I would like to develop a variation on it, with the proviso that I offer it as an alternative, not as a belief." You are perfectly prepared to accept the idea that intelligence is present in all the particles, provided we call it God. The hypothesis I am offering is the same, except that this form of intelligence did not precede the particles but evolved within them. 
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> DAVID: If you can give me a plausible mechanism by which cells can gain intelligence by themselves, I will give a little on my resistance to your hypothesis. 
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> That is fair, and is one reason why I offer the hypothesis as an alternative and not as a belief. If you can give me a plausible mechanism by which pure energy can have intelligence before it has anything to be intelligent about, and can have knowledge of matter before it has even turned itself into matter, I will give a little on my resistance to the hypothesis which you offer as a belief without any alternative.
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> DAVID: Do not tell me information. They do that automatically now and from the first cell.
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> That is your assumption and should not be stated as if it were a fact.
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> GATEKEEPER: Have you ever read about accelerating a particle(s) to the energies of the universe? How big the accelerator would be to collide two nuclei to those energies? Maybe "something" did.
> Dhw: Maybe. And the big question is whether the "something" knew what it was doing. 
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> DAVID: And again I ask the question, tell me 'how' the something could know anything, unless it was an organized intellect.
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> It could not. That is why I am questioning whether the "something" that caused the "energies of the universe" knew what it was doing. In other words, when did consciousness come into being ... before or after the Big Bang?
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> *********
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> GATEKEEPER (as above): Have you ever read about accelerating a particle(s) to the energies of the universe? How big the accelerator would be to collide two nuclei to those energies? Maybe "something" did.
> Dhw: Maybe. And the big question is whether the "something" knew what it was doing. 
> GK: There are a limited number of "more probable" possibilities. "no nothing" is not one of them. My guess is if they built it, they are in the image of the periodic table and all it stands for.
> "I and the father are one" from og
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> I'm having trouble with this. Do you mean "nothing" is not a probability? If so, I would agree, because like David I don't believe that something can come from nothing. Who are "they"? I don't understand what you mean by the "image" of the periodic table - how do "builders" resemble a systematically organized list? What is og? And how does the quote about the father link up with the question of whether the "energies of the universe" are the result of a deliberate action? I do apologize if my questions seem stupid to you, but I need a bit of help in following your train of thought! It would also be helpful if you would only quote the section of a post that you are responding to, rather than the whole post, as this might make the line of argument clearer. Sorry again if I seem pernickety.
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> GK: How long have you two gone back and forth with this?
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> Almost since the website started, in January 2008! David and George Jelliss were among the very first contributors.-"they" is humans. It's us. the accelerator would be about the orbit Pluto or something. I would have to look it up again. But it was big. There is, although I have not read about it all, my notion that a particle entering a black hole could be accelerated to that energy. I mean if we can dream it the universe has already done it. IMO that is. So if we can image this big accelerator then there is one somewhere. That is a personal opinion only tho. I am not famous so my opinions don't count.-"image". This one is tricky because it is based somewhat on a person's experiences. But for me, I look for solution that can "fit" as many conditional changes as possible. The less conditions it fits, the less "useable". maybe "less useable" is not the right words. It does not mean invalid to me Because a function can have a single answer. And we are functions f(x). Not "matter". 
"no nothing". I can't image one thing "humans have" that the universe does not have more of. Can you?-I bounce around to many areas to fast sometimes. My bad. All this stuff is linked together. Like a photon takes every path. So humans are "every possible" human. It's a "j" thing. The more precise we are trying to be the more "j's" we need. What is "our image". it is not the body. Jesus even knew this. so what is it? -.