Genome complexity: handling replication (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, January 21, 2017, 13:18 (2863 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Panpsychism is the theory that mind is present in everything. Since God is mind, I would think you would have placed panpsychism closer to the Gold theory.

dhw: Most panpsychist theories do indeed lead to God (it underpins A.N. Whitehead’s process theology, though I believe his God - unlike yours - learns as he goes along), and that is why I am always careful to point out that mine is an individual version. It does not involve a single being, but billions and billions of rudimentary, autonomous intelligences, some of which developed sufficient awareness to begin the process of life and evolution. That is why it is “bottom up” and it is closer to chance than to God because there is no single directing power. Of course we have no idea how “sufficient awareness” could evolve, any more than we know how your God came by his awareness and knowledge – as glossed over by the meaningless philosophical escape route of First Cause.

DAVID: Do you prefer a philosophic approach of no cause, just eternal existence of the universe?

An eternal mindless universe IS a first cause. An eternal panpsychist universe IS a first cause. There are even those who claim that the first cause was some extraordinary form of nothing. The “first cause” is whatever you want it to be, which is why the term is philosophically meaningless.