More about how evolution works: look at the video (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, October 24, 2015, 14:03 (3100 days ago) @ BBella

BBELLA: Sorry, did not mean to drop the ball for so long. Life happenin&apos;...-Always happy when you pick up the ball, and I hope life is happenin&apos; nicely!-Dhw: I don&apos;t think science tends to lean to the side of eternal intelligent energy, if by that you mean a single universal mind as David imagines it. -BBELLA: No, was not implying a single universal mind as David supports, tho I do view the universe as intrinsically if not teleologically(?) connected. -It&apos;s an important distinction.-Dhw: I don&apos;t even know if science is leaning to the side of eternal energy, since some scientists still think the universe began with the Big Bang and there was nothing before it. &#13;&#10;BBELLA: I was thinking of how science recognizes that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so it would seem by that fact alone energy must be eternal - constantly transforming. And since all information that IS, is contained within ever transforming eternal energy, then it would seem to me that intelligence would be matter using information to intelligently create what IS.-I have great difficulty with the current all-pervasive concept of &#147;information&#148;. You and I seem to agree that there is a constant process of transformation by which eternal energy changes into matter into energy into matter and so on. This means there is a constant flow of &#147;information&#148; in the sense that new things are happening all the time (&quot;creating all that is&quot;), but that doesn&apos;t mean they are being guided or observed or used by any intelligence. The only intelligence we actually know of is our own, but if we accept that the mechanisms of life and consciousness are too complex to have arisen by chance, we look for a source, which links up with your next comment:&#13;&#10; &#13;&#10;BBELLA: It would seem to me that intelligence would need to have always been eternal just as energy and information has always been eternal, or nothing would have ever formed into what appears as intelligent order we see around us. Of course science believes intelligence has evolved - but that&apos;s intelligent matter using the information it has to reach this intelligent(?) conclusion.-Again I don&apos;t know what you mean by eternal &#147;information&#148;. Information about what? About energy and matter transmuting themselves? I agree that there is order on our planet and in its relationship to other elements of our solar system, but that certainly doesn&apos;t mean there has been &#147;intelligent order&#148; throughout eternity, or in the approx. 100,000,000,000 solar systems like ours in each of the approx. 100,000,000,000 galaxies (don&apos;t worry, I haven&apos;t done the counting or the guessing!), which may have replaced and may be replaced by zillions more. Maybe they just ARE. Mindless energy mindlessly transmuting itself into mindless matter. Order in a few grains of sand does not make for order in a thousand million miles of beach.-Dhw: As an alternative to this inexplicable hypothesis of David&apos;s, I have suggested that eternal energy has eternally transmuted itself into matter, and intelligence has inexplicably evolved through matter. &#13;&#10;BBELLA: Or, could it be, intelligence has always (eternally) used information within energy to transform matter into what IS?-Again, information about what? If we are thinking of life on planet Earth, the information has to be about matter - basically, how inanimate matter can be transformed into living matter. Perhaps how matter can be given life through energy? But this still doesn&apos;t give us a source of intelligence or any reason for believing that intelligence has been present for ever and ever.&#13;&#10; &#13;&#10;Dhw: This means that although energy is everywhere, intelligence is indeed divided up precisely as you describe: in zillions of entities. This would also fit in with Sheldrake (species consciousness is not the same as universal consciousness), but it dispenses with the idea of a single intelligence designing and manipulating the universe and everything in it.-BBELLA: Or, possibly, as energy transforms (creates) it vibrates information throughout all that IS. And on SOME LEVEL (<--the operative words) all creation (intelligently?) detects or becomes aware of what is newly being created through vibration. This &quot;sense&quot; within all that IS that is doing the detecting of this vibration could be considered a universally conscious intelligence? Or, what some might call God.-This ties in with the most universal concept of panpsychism, and &#148;SOME LEVEL&#148; is indeed the operative expression. But although it may well be that cause and effect reverberate throughout the universe, if I throw a stone into the water, can I really assume that the stone and the ripples are conscious at ANY level of what they are doing? Yes, there is &#147;information&#148; in the sense that things happen, and vibration may be the key to cause and effect, but neither information nor vibration implies consciousness at a level capable of deliberately creating life. So I don&apos;t think anybody would call that &#147;God&#148;. These are deep waters, and I confess that I am way out of my depth, but perhaps I am not alone!