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

by David Turell , Thursday, January 07, 2021, 14:38 (1204 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Thursday, January 07, 2021, 14:50

DAVID: Preprogramming is just one possibility, direct design the other. The complexity requires careful design of all new stages.

dhw: I specified “undabbled” (dabbling = direct design). Every single programme would have had to contain detailed instructions, whereas cellular intelligence would require no instructions at all. See your misleading statement above, now bolded.

So you want cells to forge ahead on their own designing for the future to make new different species? God doesn't need a book of instructions. He always knows exactly what to do.

DAVID: As usual I'll accept logic. I don't think He does anything to satisfy His personal emotional needs. He has none in my opinion.

dhw: If you’ll accept logic, then you will have to accept that it is perfectly feasible to argue that if our part of his consciousness produces certain thought patterns and emotions, they may well be similar to his own. Your opinion does not change the logic of the argument.

DAVID: Logic tells us that His degree of consciousness may be vastly superior to ours and we may have a simple version of it, with n o direct comparisons possible.

dhw: Of course his degree of consciousness/intelligence must be vastly superior to ours (if he exists). Does anyone seriously believe that we can create a universe that will spawn life? But that does not mean he cannot have thought patterns and emotions similar to ours, as you have so rightly pointed out in the past.

He may, but we don't know if the thought is true.

DAVID: My comments are not set in stone. I have a right to alter your misinterpretations of my comments.

dhw: How can anyone possibly misinterpret the statement that “He and we probably have similar thought patterns and emotions beyond just simple logical thought”? But I’m pleased to hear that your comments are not set in stone. That is why I continue to challenge them – though in this case, you have my full support!

DAVID: Thank you.

dhw: I must thank you for the above comment in bold, which explicitly justifies our probing into God’s possible “humanized” purposes for creating life.

DAVID: Emergence requires the invention of life. Only God does that.

dhw: I am not discounting God! I am proposing (theistic version) that he designed materials from which both life and consciousness emerge. This = theistic materialism. What is your objection?

DAVID: Life and consciousness are both immaterial aspects of the materials God used. That is dualism, not "theistic materialism".

dhw: If life and consciousness emerge from materials, we have materialism. If life and consciousness are separate “entities” from the materials, we have dualism. What I have proposed is a compromise between the two theories. Theistic version: your God created a material machine which generates life and consciousness. We leave open the question of whether what is generated (the immaterial living and conscious “self”) can survive the death of the machine. As far as I know, most materialists reject the concept of a God and therefore rely on chance as the creator of the original “machine”. They would almost certainly reject the possibility of an afterlife. What is your objection?

None: if life and consciousness exist we have clearly dualism, and it does come out of material substance. To repeat, life itself is an immaterial phenomenon, and consciousness certainly is.