Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof - PART ONE (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, January 05, 2021, 11:38 (1200 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Why design an independent machine when it is easy to do the job yourself? Your every intent in this vein is to reduce God's image and value.

dhw: There is no attempt to reduce God’s image and value. Do tell us more about your non-humanized image of your God, and please explain why a control freak is of greater value than an inventor who gives free rein to his invention. And why is it “easier” and more “valuable” to keep stepping in to perform operation after operation on whales’ legs and hominids’ brains and pelvises (plus giving millions of courses on nest-building and camouflage and every natural wonder you can think of) than to create a single mechanism which will enable organisms to do their own designing?

DAVID: We have two very opposite views of God's personality and intentions.

Why won’t you tell us more about your interpretation of God’s “image and value” and personality? And why won’t you tell us why millions of direct operations are “easier” than the invention of a single mechanism to make all the changes?

DAVID: And I state belief based on the evidence. I don't see the above thought experiment as substantive.
And:
DAVID: I think we live in God's consciousness and He has given us some of His.

So why is that more “substantive” than your God inventing a mechanism which will produce consciousness similar to his? (NB: if he gives us some of His consciousness, then we have all the more reason to believe that he and we probably have similar thought patterns, emotions etc. Please do not ignore this parenthesis!)

dhw: […] My point is that if everything comes from materials, it is perfectly logical for your God to have created materials from which intelligence emerges. That would be a theistic compromise between dualism and materialism.

DAVID: It is your logic, not mine. The cells act intelligently through God's instructions.

Your statement of your belief does not make my proposal illogical.

dhw: Your bias against God-given cellular intelligence has nothing whatsoever to do with science leading you to “recognize” the automaticity of cells….[continued below]

DAVID: The automaticity is obvious. You invoke weak evidence of innate cellular intelligence as your gross bias.

It is/was not “obvious” to such distinguished scientists as McLintock, Margulis and Shapiro, all of whom had/have no doubt that cells are sentient, cognitive beings. (For more names, see references on Wikipedia, under “Microbial Intelligence”.) NB: I acknowledge that what I am offering is a theory, not a proven fact. I would never presume, as you seem to do, that science only supports one interpretation out of multiple possibilities.

dhw: [continued from above] …..to advocate a two-part soul (or a two-part self), or to your astonishing claim that you “know” God is nothing like a human.

DAVID: You are an amazing theologian. They know God is not anything like us, Adler certainly included. From non-belief you develop all sorts of wild concepts of Him, especially humanizing.

Nobody “knows” even if God exists, let alone what he is like. We can only speculate, which is why I offer different alternatives, all of which you agree are logical - just as you agree that your God probably has thought patterns etc. similar to ours, so do please stop pretending you never said so.

dhw: […] if I remember rightly, you even believe that our consciousness is part of his consciousness.

DAVID: Yes, consciousness is a gift from God, but I fully agree it has to arise from material which lives, with life another gift from God.

I don’t have a problem with this belief. How does it run counter to the theory that your God designed materials from which consciousness would emerge – just as humans have built machines from which artificial intelligence emerges – i.e. in your own words: “consciousness is an emergent product of the living brain”?

DAVID: The chain of life from the original bacteria to us is the only reason we are here. Life only comes from life, and it is glaringly obvious it didn't pop up spontaneously from any ordinary matter.

I agree. And the chain of life from the original bacteria is the only reason why ALL life forms were or are here. And I agree that life only comes from life, except for its unknown origin. And I agree with the logic that even the first living cells are too complex to have popped up spontaneously. That is why I accept the logic of the design theory. I remain agnostic, however, because I cannot regard the mystery of life and consciousness as having been solved by creating an even greater mystery in the form of a living, conscious, unknown and sourceless “being” who designed them.