More Denton: A new book (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, March 10, 2016, 17:10 (3180 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: This sounds impressive, but particles are matter, and you have listed “portions” of particles.
DAVID: Sorry, wrong: atoms are the basic constituents of matter. I'm discussing pure energy particles, size measured in electron volts which make up atoms.-http://chemistry.about.com/od/matter/fl/What-Is-the-Most-Basic-Building-Block-of-Matter... -Why “sorry, wrong”? You have split my two sentences!
dhw: My point is not that we cannot separate energy from matter, but that they are interdependent.
DAVID: Yes, interdependent, but we can interrupt that relationship with enough energy power to smash matter apart and find the energy particles inside the atoms.
-So you agree with me, and there is no need for a “but”. This is becoming a pattern (see later.) Your examples of “pure energy” included electrons, protons, quarks, which are subatomic particles. Your article says: “at the subatomic level it's difficult to identify a single particle that could be called the basic building block of matter. You could say quarks and leptons [an electron is a lepton] are the basic building blocks of matter, if you like.”-Clearly matter depends on its building blocks. As for “pure energy”, the very concept is controversial, so I don't know on what authority you claim that quarks, electrons, protons etc. are “pure energy”.-DAVID: Plasmas are pure energy.-From Wikipedia: Plasma (from Greek ??????, "anything formed"[1]) is one of the four fundamental states of matter, the others being solid, liquid, and gas. 
Plasma is the most abundant form of ordinary matter in the Universe (of the forms proven to exist; the more abundant dark matter is hypothetical and may or may not be explained by ordinary matter)....-No mention here either of plasma as “pure energy”.-dhw: Similarly, your fellow scientists can believe in strings and multiverses, though you suddenly become sceptical when they come up with such “unknowns”.
DAVID: Plasmas are knowns!-Are you saying we actually know of a "pure plasma of energy"?-dhw: I don't know of any “body” which is not material. Hence “disembodied”. So now we have eternally conscious energy AND matter (God) consciously creating all the energy and matter that exists.
DAVID: You want God to be matter. Why!?-I don't want any such thing. I called your God's consciousness “disembodied”. On Monday you responded “How do you know God's consciousness is disembodied? I consider is as a fully organized construction”. If you don't think it's disembodied, it must be material. But when challenged on Tuesday you described it as a “plasma of energy. Thus disembodied and immaterial...” So you rejected my use of “disembodied”, but then you told me your God was disembodied. This is what comes of disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing! Ts, ts!-DAVID: Back to the theory that the brain is a receiver of consciousness as a possibility. Consciousness may exist as electromagnetic wave fields, and they are not matter. Magnetic fields are not matter, but magnets are.-Once again, my question is whether energy and matter can exist without each other - not whether they can be separated. Your “pure energy” God (magnetic fields)would have to exist independently of matter (magnet) and would then have to produce “de novo” the matter (magnet) that produces energy (magnetic fields). But nobody knows what consciousness is, so we should keep an open mind. -dhw: But can we say energy and matter have always been conscious of themselves? Why is that more logical than to claim that at some unknown time, energy and matter BECAME conscious of themselves?
DAVID: If you have followed my reasoning, consciousness may be pure energy, and the only matter necessary is the matter that receives the thoughts and feelings and interprets.-I'll accept “may be”, but that still doesn't make it true, and it doesn't make “always been” more logical than “became”.-Dhw: ...what “metaphorical” reasons can you think of for God wanting to set us problems in the first place?
DAVID: My guess: He knew that balance of life would require dangers to us, but with the powerful brains He gave us we can find the answers. Would you like the Garden of Eden without challenges to keep life interesting or do you want the obvious boredom of the Garden? -I like the answer. Clearly, then, you think your God knew all about boredom, so it ties in perfectly with him creating life to relieve his own boredom.-dhw: There was no need for any jumps...full stop. I agree that there must be a driving purpose: I have suggested survival and/or improvement. That drive (perhaps implanted by your hypothetical God when he hypothetically endowed the first cells with intelligence) would explain every jump you can think of, including from apes to humans.
DAVID: Bacteria have survived without any improvement! The point cannot be escaped. Multicellularity gave us sexual reproduction which introduced the ability of opening up genetics to more complexity in progeny. Still looks teleological to me.
-Once again, you are repeating my arguments as if you are disagreeing with me. There was no need for ANY jumps. Yes, teleological, the purpose being survival and/or improvement. You seem to think the word “teleology” is confined to meaning “God created life for the purpose of producing humans”!