Identity (Identity)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Wednesday, August 26, 2009, 01:43 (5567 days ago) @ David Turell

Unless one accepts the Darwin version of DNA, no code ever pops up by chance. 
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> > As dhw would likely point out, it would be proof of complexity, but not *proof* of a creator. 
> > Remember, my metaphysics must do something.
> 
> I would like you metaphysics tell me how a code appears without intelligence behind it. - My metaphysic doesn't require me to answer that question because it recognizes the question as unanswerable to any tool of investigation I possess; even though I do enjoy learning other views such as yours, to me the question is utterly unknowable. My metaphysic is therefore content to leave such questions for ones I *can* investigate. (Note that I separate investigation from speculation.) When I say that natural selection is adequate, it is so because it is the best explanation we can come up with with the available tools, not because it is the most satisfying or complete. 
 
I know you have a lot of passion and thought behind your conviction, but the resistance you receive from outside observers such as myself is ultimately based upon parsimony. To me, any acceptable explanation *must* be studyable. Adding a deity to the model of the universe is... a postscript. What would change about any model assuming a deity exists? What extra thing would it explain? You think a deity would explain the complexity of life, but I say it wouldn't because we still wouldn't be any closer to knowing the how, which is utterly the more important question. We would be no closer to the philosophical and theological question of "why?" It doesn't move anything forward, unless you can enlighten me on some point I'm missing. The only thing I can see it would accomplish is allowing scientists to be less materialistic, hopefully getting more theists into the fold. - Look, you've told me that your view is essentially panentheistic, and of course I can respect that, but unless you can tell me how this deity works, you're in no better position than those who support scientific abiogenesis. In fact in a great many ways you're at a disadvantage in terms of explanation, as there is no way to determine "good" theological explanations from "bad." - This is why I've liked the process philosophy that you seem to dislike, because it at least attempts to provide *some* kind of explanation for God's interface with the world.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"