Afterlife: Pinker's skeptical thought (Endings)

by dhw, Monday, June 08, 2020, 10:51 (1412 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You always ignore is that cellular intelligence is only an appearance from the outside of cells. When we go inside all we see is automatic molecular activity at very, very high speed, all the reactions highly coordinated. Always looks very intelligently organized and designed to me.

dhw: When you look inside a human being, all you will see is automatic molecular activity. You can’t SEE intelligence! You can only identify it through behaviour. You claimed that my theory was “lonely”. It is not (see above). You have always acknowledged that it has a 50/50 chance of being correct. So once more, please tell us why it is more of a fairy tale than your God preprogramming or dabbling every new complexity in life.

DAVID: What is acting as the man behind the screen as in Wizard of Oz? The instructions the cell follows in its genome. My personal odds are 100%.

dhw: So what are you referring to when you tell us the odds are 50/50?

DAVID: On a chance basis it is either or, so only one is possible. 50/50 has always described that and therefore is never an opinion in and of itself. Personal choice is based on thoughtful analysis of the relevant facts.

50/50 means there is an equal chance of each option being correct. 100% means dismissal of 50% of possible correctness. But I’m glad you recognize that those who have made their personal choice in favour of cellular intelligence must have based that choice on thoughtful analysis of the relevant facts.

DAVID: I can't accept the complexity of the biology of life I fully understand without a designer.

dhw: And the atheist can’t accept the existence of an unknown, unknowable, hidden, inexplicable, sourceless, eternal, immaterial form of universal consciousness. You both refuse to take off your blinkers, but one of you is right. To each his own.

DAVID: But you agree design implies a designer, don't you?

Or designers. For instance, if all the increasing complexities of life were the product of intelligent cells cooperating, we would have millions of designers. The question then would be: how did the intelligent cell originate? And that question is on a par with: how did your God originate? And so back we go to “first cause”, as already discussed.