so we are not dealing with a closed system and a complex human appears anti-entropy.-Only to those that don't have a sufficient appreciation of what entropy is.-for those interested:
http://secondlaw.oxy.edu/
http://entropysimple.oxy.edu/content.htm#second_law

Romansh: Well, I don't know about you, but if my Daddy's sperm cell hadn't said hello to my Mummy's egg cell, I wouldn't have been here. I don't recall it either, but that's what my Daddy told me. 
> 
> I could have been clearer here ... I only got one cell from my mother ... I'll agree a sperm cell had fused with it prior to that.
> 
> But it was that one cell (in my mother) that had started dividing. And due to the conservation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics a good deal of what is mean came from potatoes and roast.-The Y chromosome may be small but it has powerful effects. DNA guides the energy consumed, so we are not dealing with a closed system and a complex human appears anti-entropy. We still don't have any answer to the question of how rocks and water got this life process started.

Well, I don't know about you, but if my Daddy's sperm cell hadn't said hello to my Mummy's egg cell, I wouldn't have been here. I don't recall it either, but that's what my Daddy told me. -I could have been clearer here ... I only got one cell from my mother ... I'll agree a sperm cell had fused with it prior to that.-But it was that one cell (in my mother) that had started dividing. And due to the conservation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics a good deal of what is mean came from potatoes and roast.

ROMANSH: I don't know about you...Mummy gave me only one cell, I don't recall seeing a cell from Daddy.
> That cell took potatoes and veggies then grew and split many times.
> 
> dhw: Well, I don't know about you, but if my Daddy's sperm cell hadn't said hello to my Mummy's egg cell, I wouldn't have been here. I don't recall it either, but that's what my Daddy told me. And I was also told that all my genes (those are the parts of my cells that control what I look like and how I have developed) were passed on to me by Mummy and Daddy and not by potatoes and veggies. But I have seen a rugby player with a cauliflower ear, so you may be right.-I'm actually insulted by the glib silliness. We are supposed to be solvng the complexities of reality here. Going from fertilized egg to trillions of differentiated cells that compose a human baby is hardly something that can be seen as a result of a chance Darwinian mechanism. But then most atheists I know from reading are rather superficial thinkers. The result was my anti-Dawkins book.

ROMANSH: Our responses to the universe do not intrisically appear within the brain (choose whatever organ you feel comfortable with). It took the universe to make ourcellves and ourcellves unfold the universe.
> 
> dhw: What is the difference between a response and an intrinsic response? I agree that it took the universe to make ourcellves, but I don't know what you mean by ourcellves "unfolding" the universe. If our responses to the universe do not come from our cells, what do they come from?-I think by unfold he means understand how the universe works. And also there is the early quantum theory approach that the universe cannot exist without our intelligence to observe it. That has always been a weird approach to me.

Romansh: You keep saying this David ... i have no way of verifying this statement.
> > 
> > So you think there is possibility that an idea or thought contains energy, if spoken, voiced, or written? The energy is in the production, not the resultant thought itself.
> > 
> 
> You keep saying this David ... I have no way of verifying this statement.
> 
> Why can't thought be energy?
> 
> Why this continual dualistic mindset ... thought separate from matter, god separate from matter?-:>)) because I am stubborn, and I don't see your point at all. You cannot prove that an expressed thought, in and of itself, once expressed, contains any energy. Again , the philosophers I read agree with me. I believe this is why Shannon introduced his information theory, since he couldn't measure energy, to quantify it somehow.

Romansh: That is why I put it as I did. Thought may result from neural energy, but the thought itself is without any energy component in it. That is why consciousness is so tough to explain.
> > You keep saying this David ... i have no way of verifying this statement.
> 
> So you think there is possibility that an idea or thought contains energy, if spoken, voiced, or written? The energy is in the production, not the resultant thought itself.
> -You keep saying this David ... I have no way of verifying this statement.-Why can't thought be energy?-Why this continual dualistic mindset ... thought separate from matter, god separate from matter?

Romansh: That is why I put it as I did. Thought may result from neural energy, but the thought itself is without any energy component in it. That is why consciousness is so tough to explain.
> You keep saying this David ... i have no way of verifying this statement.-So you think there is possibility that an idea or thought contains energy, if spoken, voiced, or written? The energy is in the production, not the resultant thought itself.-
> Romansh: All I am saying you do split ... but yours is a much coarser split than that of a traditional reductionist.-I don't think of myself as a reductionist at all. I underwstand the parts, but in no way do they control me.

That is why I put it as I did. Thought may result from neural energy, but the thought itself is without any energy component in it. That is why consciousness is so tough to explain.
You keep saying this David ... i have no way of verifying this statement.-> Yes, our sensory inputs shape our neural pathways. Helen Keller had only touch and smell but she certainly developed a self. Are you saying that she had no sense of self, until she was taught? I don't buy that. -Helen Keller is not the perfect example ... she lost her sight and hearing at nineteen months, so while her selfhood was not fully established at this stage but it was well on its way. She was also supplemented by a large amount of care which can be a proxy for sensory inputs. So no I am not saying Keller had no sense of self. But I am saying she had much loving and caring sensory inputs. 
> No, I lump. Self is molded by experiences, no doubt, but I don't worry about the strange bioelectrical apparatus we have been given to work with. We learn to play it like a fine violin, if we wish. And you and I couldn't be having this clear exchange of thoughts without it.
I would not be here for whole bunch of reasons that extend beyond my brain. All I am saying you do split ... but yours is a much coarser split than that of a traditional reductionist.


> Romansh: But there is an inherent fallacy in the sum of the energies of the neurons that create it.-That is why I put it as I did. Thought may result from neural energy, but the thought itself is without any energy component in it. That is why consciousness is so tough to explain.
> 
> Romansh; Imagine someone deprived from all sensory input from a very early age. This person will not develop a sense of self I would argue. It is our sensory inputs that shape our neural pathways together with other bodily functions.-Yes, our sensory inputs shape our neural pathways. Helen Keller had only touch and smell but she certainly developed a self. Are you saying that she had no sense of self, until she was taught? I don't buy that. 
> 
> Romansh; Looking them separately is a fallacy ... as any lumper should understand.
> Unless you really are a splitter and you have a realtively coarse split at the body?-No, I lump. Self is molded by experiences, no doubt, but I don't worry about the strange bioelectrical apparatus we have been given to work with. We learn to play it like a fine violin, if we wish. And you and I couldn't be having this clear exchange of thoughts without it.


> > Romansh: If we were to positively identify some "magical" energy (for a want of a better word) that is our supposed consciousness, this would be no problem for a materialist, she would just add it to the menagerie of energies that already exist. What would be a problem for a materialist if this magical energy was truly magical and was not described by the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
> 
> How do you define conscious thought as energy? It is not the sum of the energies of the neurons that create it.-That's how I might define it ... perhaps other than not what it seems.-But there is an inherent fallacy in the sum of the energies of the neurons that create it.-Imagine someone deprived from all sensory input from a very early age. This person will not develop a sense of self I would argue. It is our sensory inputs that shape our neural pathways together with other bodily functions.-Looking them separately is a fallacy ... as any lumper should understand.
Unless you really are a splitter and you have a realtively coarse split at the body?


> Romansh: If we were to positively identify some "magical" energy (for a want of a better word) that is our supposed consciousness, this would be no problem for a materialist, she would just add it to the menagerie of energies that already exist. What would be a problem for a materialist if this magical energy was truly magical and was not described by the first and second laws of thermodynamics.-How do you define conscious thought as energy? It is not the sum of the energies of the neurons that create it.

DHW: Sadly, we do seem to have great difficulty communicating! The context of our discussion was that if we are nothing but our cells (the materialist view), it is a false dichotomy to claim that our cells control us and therefore we have no free will. If our cells ARE us, logically we/they control ourselves/themselves. In your response you wrote:-Our we talking about materialism or your your logic for ourcellf?-The way I see your logic works is:
1) Lets define the cells in [our] bodies as our cells 
2) The metabolism of our cells which results actions, consciousness etc can be described as ours
Therefore ... It is perfectly reasonable call our collection of cells, actions consciousness etc as ours of a self-I have no problem with this is a sloppy, casual pragmatic way. Language has forced me to describe my thoughts and ideas as mine etc. ie Dualistically-But in a deeper philosophical and rigorous way I think this whole dualistic position is a nonsense. Just because I might use words, symbols, pictures to describe chemistry it does not mean chemistry is these things.-Again going back to the supposed view that materialists think there is nothing but our material self. A materialist would argue that material things respond to cause and effect. ie a photon does not have a mass but responds to gravity.-If we were to positively identify some "magical" energy (for a want of a better word) that is our supposed consciousness, this would be no problem for a materialist, she would just add it to the menagerie of energies that already exist. What would be a problem for a materialist if this magical energy was truly magical and was not described by the first and second laws of thermodynamics. -> Although I had not suggested that YOU had suggested we were (just) our cells, it seemed that your comment might shed an interesting light on the subject under discussion (free will), and so I asked you to explain what aspects of ourselves could not be subsumed under the activity of our cells. You replied: "Much more = the universe". And I can only repeat (sadly) that this leaves me none the wiser about whether or not we have free will or, in a wider context, what is the nature of the self.-The nature of the self (like free will) is that it is not what it seems.
Our responses to the universe do not intrisically appear within the brain (choose whatever organ you feel comfortable with). It took the universe to make ourcellves and ourcellves unfold the universe. This is part of GK's feed back if we like.-Also if our cells don't come from the food we eat ... where does it come from?


> > By definition all definitions are limiting ... is and is not.
> 
> true.
> 
> > Ultimately language is dualistic (or pluralistic at best). Hence I have problem describing a monistic world view. Consequently while I can understand DHW's point of view he claims to be non the wiser after my explanations. -> Not for me. -While I don't doubt language can be used for other things, I can't see how language is not ultimately dualistic for you?-When you point to a tree and say "tree" are you not implying "not cow"?-If not, then I would say any explanation, say of woodlands, that you may have is just not going to cut it for me?


> GK: It doesn't have to mean I am wrong. For example "I love riding". I don't need to know math (or understand neurons) to have "joy" in that.-Well, we have six horses. Come ride