Bertvan:
>>Your ideas are certainly well thought out. They would have more appeal for
>>me if they included free will, creativity and sponteneity. (which might all
>>be the same thing).
Chris
>Why do you assume they don't? Or are you suggesting that hydrogen and
>carbon atoms (etc.) have some sort of non-deterministic free
>will/creativity/spontaneity?
Bertvan:
Yes Chris, I suggest that hydrogen and carbon atoms have some sort of
non-deterministic freewill/creativity/spontaneity-certainly when they are
involved in life. (They might not even be completely deterministic when not
involved in life.) I think our whole difference of opinion lies in the
question of whether or not free-will/creativity/ spontaneity exists. Really
exists, not just as an illusion. The very existence of the universe suggests
to me creativity exists. Did your "laws of nature" always exist, or did they
somehow come into existence? Is it your argument that one atom came into
existence (or always existed) and from then on everything was a deterministic
process? If so, even that one atom remains unexplained.
If creativity exists as a reality, if something entirely new constantly
comes into existence, it is a "supernatural" process. If free-will exists,
if the choices life constantly makes are real and not an illusion, that is a
"supernatural" phenomenon. At least we have no naturalistic explanation for
it. That lack of explanation encourages theists to attribute creativity to
God. ID is proposing that "intelligence" comes into existence. Personally,
I'd be open to other explanations, but haven't yet heard a convincing one.
Difference of opinion on such unanswerable questions is legitimate, and I
feel no scorn for anyone's attempt at answers. However determinism just
doesn't do it for me. A computer is deterministic. I'm convinced computers
will never be capable of free-will/creativity/spontaneity-the most
conspicuous difference between life and non-life.
Bertvan
http://members.aol.com/bertvan
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