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

by David Turell , Sunday, October 04, 2020, 16:07 (1510 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: 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.

Your summary is quite thorough and correct with the exception of the bold. In my acceptance of God, there is no requirement to understand His reasons for His actions. I do not try to understand what His reasons might be. I just see what He did and accept it. You sit on the outside of 'acceptance' and seem to demand logic for all His actions. My simple logic is at a level you refuse to accept. My view is God chose to evolve all of the bush of life on the way to a goal of human, an exact parallel to history. From Thursday's comment you did not answer:

DAVID: If God chose to evolve us of course He desired to create all the necessary stages as a part of the process. Answer one is your unreasonable version of my theory. We were His purposeful eventual outcome. […] It is patently obvious God wanted to create us.

dhw: But you have him specifically designing ALL species, so it must be patently obvious that he wanted to create ALL species throughout the last 3.8 billion years. Which can only mean that we weren’t the one and only species he wanted to create! Or can you tell us in what way the dodo and the dinosaur plus millions of other dead life forms were “necessary stages” before he could start designing us.

David: Your thinking finally understands my theory. Of course He wanted all of the evolutionary stages on the way to humans, which are His final goal. The lack of understanding all these years shows your basic bias from the beginning. Your statement that He only wanted humans was your rigid misinterpretation of my thoughts all along.

Do you understand my approach or not?