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

by dhw, Sunday, January 10, 2021, 09:39 (1413 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Knowing the complexity of the physiological changes needed to solve most of the gap advances in the whale series we recognize, and recognizing how current animals adapt, we have no reason to accept your theory. I view it as wishful thinking with no basis in the biological science of evolution. Knowing needs in the future is always part of designing.

dhw: I wonder how many evolutionary biologists maintain that God changed pre-whale legs into fins before they entered the water, or that current animals adapt in anticipation of conditions that do not yet exist. I hope you will never attempt to present your theory to a gathering of evolutionary biologists or indeed to any gathering of scientists of any ilk.

DAVID: The ilk I represent is the ID ilk, full of qualified scientists that I quote here. Surprise!! They believe everything is designed. I wish you would read their books.

You have switched from your theory that your God designed changes IN ANTICIPATION of changing conditions to the general theory of design. I have no problem with the design theory as such, and you know it! The problem is with your belief that your God personally preprogrammed or dabbled every life form, econiche, natural wonder etc., and that he did so in advance of requirements – e.g. he turned pre-whale legs into fins before whales entered the water – and that every single design was part of his one and only goal of evolving [=directly designing] humans.” Unfortunately it becomes impossible to avoid raising this subject again when you so radically distort my objections to your theory of evolution.Even you have told us that your ID folks try to avoid mentioning God!

dhw: […] Proposal: Life and consciousness emerge from material substances (= materialism) but they constitute the immaterial components of our identity (= dualism). Whether the mechanism whereby the immaterial emerges from the material was designed by your God or not is a matter of faith, as is belief in an afterlife of what you called "an emergent product of the living brain".

DAVID: Yes to each his own. I'll stick to faith in God.

dhw: I’m delighted that you accept my compromise solution to the dualism v materialism debate, which fits in so perfectly with your own firmly stated belief that consciousness is “an emergent product of the brain”, and of course I accept your faith in God as the designer of this remarkable machine.

DAVID: Yes, design fits.

It does indeed. What did the designing and how it was done remain open questions, as they do with the whole history of evolution, but I accept your faith in God as the designer even if I can’t share it. We seem to be in agreement.