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

by dhw, Sunday, November 19, 2017, 14:20 (2559 days ago) @ David Turell

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.

DAVID: 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.

I did not say he was interested in individuals. You have offered us the hypothesis that he might be watching different civilizations “to see how they turn out”. That is exactly the same process as watching the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution to “see how it turns out”. Earlier on in our years of discussion you rejected the whole idea that he might be experimenting, and you continue to reject the idea of a “show” that he can watch. Now you are putting the two together, though why you think the show has to be confined to human beings even in other galaxies I really don’t know.