Genome complexity: mechanism stopped evolving (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, May 15, 2016, 17:52 (3115 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Like BBella, I don't understand how conscious energy can be the only thing in existence and yet separate its own simpler unconscious forms. You now have a God who is part conscious and part unconscious.-DAVID: If God invented the universe, and I'm sure He did, it is not conscious. If God invented life, and I'm sure He did, He started with bacteria, and they are not conscious.-But if nothing existed except consciousness, what did consciousness make an unconscious universe from? As regards bacteria, their non-consciousness is a matter of opinion not fact.-DAVID: The universe appears to have been created. It is not conscious, except through us. We have been developed from an inorganic universe, all controlled by the universal mind which manages all development.
dhw: So your universal mind is separate from the unconscious inorganic universe, which it created out of nothing but its consciousness. As a panentheist, you believe this conscious mind is within AND without BBella's ALL THAT IS. So God is/is not within/separate from the inorganic universe, and is/is not conscious/unconscious. I find this a bit confusing. Perhaps theistic panpsychism will play some role in your thinking, but I'll leave you to sort out the convolutions!
DAVID: Your problem, not mine. The inorganic universe with its lately arrived living portion has a universal consciousness, God.-Ah well, I guess that's one way of ending a discussion. 
 
dhw: So faith is required if one is to dismiss all other solutions. 
DAVID: Now you understand! A breakthrough! You of no faith flounder. 
dhw: We only flounder when we see theists and atheists kidding themselves that reason, science and common sense are on their side, when we ourselves are painfully aware - as you now acknowledge so triumphantly - that reason, science and common sense are on nobody's side, and to be a theist or an atheist you must rely on irrational, non-scientific, non-commonsensical faith. Well, this acknowledgement is indeed a breakthrough! 
DAVID: Funny, but I started as an agnostic, looked at the science and found faith. My mind does not work like yours. Not surprising, we all have our own approaches and prejudices.-Very true. If all our minds worked alike, there would be nothing to discuss!