Innovation (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, May 08, 2013, 19:42 (4016 days ago) @ David Turell

bbella: David, isn't the pantheist way/spinoza is that God is within and without all that is? That creation is created from God's own essence and is God? If so, why would God need to tinker/tweak/dabble from without? God is all things, why not just tinker from within that which needed tweaking?-DAVID: You are right in that God's reach is into everything, and can easily dabble from within when necessary, and is the way I think about it. But at the same time I imagine God as the universal consciousness at a quantum level, (whatever that means exactly), because quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics are so counterintuitive. Then using the aspect of non-locality, it can be obviously thought that God is everywhere all the time. At the same time, as I have pointed out to dhw, God works through evolutionary processes in forming the universe and creating all forms of life. However he allows adaptation triggered by the organisms themselves. That creates variations that may not achieve God's goals, and that is when he must step in or reach in.-"Universal consciousness at a quantum level (whatever that means exactly)", "God is everywhere all the time", and "God works through evolutionary processes" ... none of this explains why your God has to tweak from outside! And if the variations created by the intelligent genome do "not achieve God's goals", but God is inside as well as outside the genome, again why must he dabble from outside? BBella's question is a valid one! Indeed one might ask HOW he dabbles from outside. By telekinesis? By donning a white coat and operating? By magic? The fact is, most of what you have said about your God can be applied to the concept of panpsychist "intelligent energy" ... it too is conscious at a quantum level ("whatever that means exactly"), is all over the place in and outside matter (which it can survive), and works through evolution, forming the universe and life. And it "tweaks" all the time. From the inside. Without any intervention by the divine surgeon/magician.