Afterlife: Pinker's skeptical thought (Endings)

by dhw, Wednesday, June 10, 2020, 15:21 (1625 days ago) @ David Turell

Under "A PHYSICIST BELIEVES IN FREE WILL":
QUOTE: "As explained by Denis Noble and Raymond Noble in their paper for the journal Chaos in 2018, molecular randomness gives cellular mechanisms the option of choosing the outcomes they want, and discarding those they don’t."

DAVID: this is a purely materialistic view of brain function, but it certainly allows for free will. Enormous article filled with explanations worth studying.

Thank you for the article and for editing it. I found his purely materialistic view generally difficult to reconcile with the concept of free will, but the above quote clearly proposes that cell communities make their own choices (one up for cellular intelligence), and if we were to expand that proposal to the thinking part of the materialist’s brain, then clearly we can argue that our own personal thinking cells make our choices our own!
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DAVID: Our only difference then is the source of intelligent activity by cells. I have God as the source, and you don't know of a source, but God is possible.

dhw: Unfortunately, our fundamental difference is the NATURE of intelligent activity. You insist that each activity has been programmed or dabbled by your God, and the cells are automatons obeying his instructions, whereas I propose that cellular intelligence is autonomous.

DAVID: But you have no explanation for the origin of cellular intelligence.

I have always allowed for God as the designer. The subject under discussion is not the origin of cellular intelligence but WHETHER cells are intelligent or not.

DAVID: It is easy to see intelligence in the purposeful activity of cells, since they are designed that way by their designer, who also is first cause.

dhw: Yes, their purposeful, autonomous intelligence could have been designed by a designer. And an atheist can say that their purposeful, autonomous intelligence, like life itself***, was the result of a lucky combination of mindless energy and matter, which is also first cause.

DAVID: And I go back to in basic form of plasma the charged ions combine in no particular direction unless under a specific force, which appeared because of what?

And I go back to the basic question of a universal conscious mind which appeared because of what? We are going round in circles! All three “first causes” require blinkered faith if anyone is to believe in them.

dhw: ***Under "theoretical origin of life": "There are two explanations for the origins of life's building molecules: extraterrestrial delivery, such as via meteorites, and endogenous formation. The presence of amino acids and other biomolecules in meteorites points to the former.”
See what I mean?

DAVID: We know that some amino acids arrived by meteorites. That is old news. Tells us nothing about how the necessary 20 amino acids, all left-handed appeared and were combined by some process to make active living biochemistry.

You missed the point. The article confirms what I told you would be the atheist approach.