Re: Randomness and complex organization via evolution

From: Bertvan@aol.com
Date: Thu Jul 13 2000 - 11:22:15 EDT

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    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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