Negative atheism? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, December 15, 2014, 00:08 (3631 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: the alternative hypothesis I have offered is that consciousness may have evolved out of the never ending process of mindless energy transmuting itself into matter. ..... So please clarify your statement: “Formless energy, a plasma of potential particles does not appear to be a source of organized matter following laws of development such as this universe demonstrates.” If you stand by your original statement, then I trust you will agree that my alternative hypothesis is not something from nothing.-I feel my statement is quite clear. It is my position that the cause of the universe can be nothing less than a planning consciousness which is eternal. Your suggestion is that consciousness can somehow appear out of matter which develops sort of by itself out of formless energy. A wonderful imaginary scenario of ifs, ands, and buts. Just how can that happen? Please describe the process, if you can. It sounds like something completely ethereal. All I can say is your alternative hypothesis is a good try in avoiding the obvious. What we have is too complex (the universe and its life) to simply appear out of nowhere.
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> dhw: Of course it would be illogical to claim that the cell is autonomous if your basic premise is that everything has been planned in order to create humans. It's your basic premise that I'm questioning, as the unknown extent of the cell's autonomy is the crux of the inventive mechanism hypothesis. The greater the autonomy, the more higgledy-piggledy the bush and the less convincing the hypothesis that humans were the original purpose of the process.-Your comment is absolutely correct. You and I can never ascertain IM limits in our current state of knowledge. With enough autonomy we could have had two-headed humans. The skies are the limit with complete IM autonomy. But instead we have a nice balance of nature, and some fascinating interlocking life styles from a very inventive living process, much of which obviously requires advanced planning so all the new parts of new organisms work well together and at times for each other.