Information as the source of life; Davies current opinion (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, October 04, 2020, 14:43 (1301 days ago) @ David Turell

I’ve edited the quotes and our responses, since you had only one comment to make.

QUOTE: I, for one, find a universe that naturally gives rise to purposive and creative organisms more plausible, and more reassuring, than one that is completely purposeless.

dhw: Ambiguous. What does he mean by “naturally”? The organisms (not just humans) are purposive and creative. It’s only if you think there is a God who designed them that you can talk of “teleology”, i.e. a purpose behind the existence of purposive, creative organisms. […]

dhw: it requires just as great a leap of faith to believe in a sourceless supreme intelligence that simply exists and designs as the leap of faith that the source of our existence and intelligence is “blind chance”.

DAVID: Blind chance cannot design the intricacies of living organisms. Logic dictates a designer!!!

dhw: An excellent argument for design, which explains your own leap of faith. But this whole article deals with teleology

DAVID: Your same blinkered view. There is no logical way around the existence of a designer.

dhw: [...] in your two brilliant books, you have made the strongest possible case for design. But this article faffs around with the subject of PURPOSE, and in my view is so muddled that it defeats its OWN purpose!

DAVID: The organisms produced by evolution seem to operate at all times from purpose and with purpose. The final issue for both of us is whether God operated with the same purpose to produce humans by evolving them. And I continuously describe a purposeful God.

Yes, the organisms clearly have the purpose of surviving and reproducing, the former purpose sometimes involving adaptation and innovation. The final issue in the context of this article has nothing whatsoever to do with the question of God’s purpose being to create humans, since it doesn’t even mention God! The article is an attempt to show that the purposeful actions of animals and humans must mean there is an overall purpose, and for me this is a complete non sequitur. If chance was the origin of life, animals and humans will still have their purposes, but there can be no universal purpose. A universal purpose would mean there is a God. You and I have been discussing what that God’s purpose might be, if he exists, and of course he would have had a purpose in designing life. But that brings us back to your theory of evolution, which you admit you cannot understand (you don’t know why he would have chosen to design millions of extinct non-human life forms when all he wanted was one life form plus its food supply), and to my own alternatives, all of which you admit are logical.