Evolution and humans: big brain size uses energy (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, November 18, 2017, 15:26 (2560 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Glad you like it. More than one Earth, each in a different galaxy is possible. Doesn't make God any more human, just an experimenter.

dhw: A being who experiments with different things to see how they turn out sounds just as “human” to me as a being who invents a mechanism that produces different things so he can see how they turn out. But I’m not complaining. It’s good to see you at last considering these different possibilities. There was a time, I remember, when you vehemently dismissed the idea of God experimenting here on Earth, since you then thought he was in total control and knew exactly what he was doing all the time.

DAVID: I haven't changed my view of God. He is in total control even if experimenting.

dhw: Once more, I am delighted that you are willing to consider different “humanized” motives for your God’s actions. I am also delighted at the implications of your God experimenting. Experimenting with different things "to see how they turn out" would provide a good theistic explanation for the higgledy-piggledy history of evolution, and humans could then have come to mind late on during his experiments. Not preplanned at all. Alternatively, he could initially have wanted to produce a being that could think like him, but didn’t know how to do it. That is another motive for experimentation. You dismissed these theistic ideas before, but now that you are willing to see him as an experimenter, perhaps you will reconsider.

I don't see my suggestions as humanizing God. Setting up different free will human civilizations does not change my view, and also Adler's, that God might not be that interested in us as individuals (religious view) but to watch how different civilizations in different galaxies develop. Each chosen galaxy has to be specially prepared for life. I'm simply accepting the possibility that the universe is huge because our group of humans is not the only ones.