Tuesday, June 20, 2017

consciousness

An interesting point.  If this is true, must it necessarily follow that consciousness reduces to physical laws? or does it mean that nature cannot reduce to physical laws?  (Note: I don't believe that Penrose is a reductionist though he may well be some sort of physicalist.) 

Many hard-core materialists believe by simply categorizing all difficult-to-reduce phenomena as epiphenomena they have made "a proper place for it."  But I think this is definitional gerrymandering. 

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Reductio ad 'undesirum'


One might say this is a conundrum of the design inference:  Assuming for the moment that the biological world can be attributed to intentional design, is the most reasonable next inference--even if it can't be inferred scientifically but only on philosophical/religious grounds--that the designing intelligence is that which also caused and infused order into this universe?

A related concern (for some people) is this:  If that is the most reasonable inference after the design inference, should that consequence invalidate the design inference?   

Modified from its original form