Regression to something (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, September 03, 2011, 12:40 (4809 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: We will go round and round until we tire. Our consciousness and intelligence is a part of the UI. Somewhere way back in infinite regression there is a something, a first cause, which has always been, not designed, but always present. An eternal UI is that something. Contrarily, if way back there is only eternal matter, what caused it? And how did that inorganic matter figure out how to make consciousness from organic matter? The UI can inject consciousness into humans as a part of the coded advance of evolution, arranged by the UI. I don't care if it is infinitely long ago, that is the only way I can accept a start to the process. I'm not arguing within my arguments. Start with my first premise of a first cause, and all the rest fits together nicely.-Humans have been going round and round this subject ever since your buddies Plato and Aristotle, if not earlier. Philosophy is a game with words and concepts ... what else can it be when the mystery is insoluble? I can well understand Matt's preference for science, despite his love of Nietzsche. However, since you and I suddenly find ourselves alone in the universe, I'm happy to go on playing the game if you are ... though of course you're free to knock over the board if you've had enough. -1)	The regression can't be infinite if there is a first cause.-2)	Your question concerning what caused eternal matter is no more and no less valid than the atheist question of what caused eternal intelligence. If you can argue that a UI has been there for ever, you might just as well argue that matter has been there for ever.-3)	Eternal matter has two priceless advantages over eternal intelligence. The first is that we know as surely as we know anything that matter exists. No-one can know with equal certainty that there is any form of intelligence outside our own. Secondly, all our observations and experience suggest that matter is constantly changing. There would seem to be no limits to the forms it can take. If the first cause was intelligence, it must have created matter. From what? But if matter has always been there ... I am now taking the atheist side ... its apparently limitless capacity for taking on new forms must eventually and inevitably have enabled it to come up with the mechanism for life and evolution. The "infinitely long ago" may have witnessed an endless series of big bangs and universes, and ours just happens to be the one in which at long, long, long last matter formed a living globule capable of evolution. That is the only way the atheist can "accept a start to the process" of life and evolution. Start with the premise of eternal matter changing into an infinity of forms, and "all the rest fits together nicely".-Won't you join me on the fence?