A thing we know for sure about the universe is that we are in it. As far as that goes perhaps it is tautology. But the properties we observe about ourselves I don’t believe are tautological, are they? Properties such as our conscious intelligence, there is nothing tautological about observing in myself that I have this, and that I am in the universe and that therefore the universe has this as part of it?
Further enhancing the question, how is it any more logical to assume a pre-existing material universe without any intelligence in it, and “observe” that intelligence arises in it without requiring intelligence to already be in it in any sense of those words, vs. presuming that there was a pre-existing intelligence universe from which a material universe arises, which is essentially the theist viewpoint? IF it has to be one of the other, if either intelligence or material has to come first, then to the extent humans can conclude anything from scientific observation, they can see evidence of a material universe going back 12, 14 billion years, but clear evidence of intelligence going back only a few hundred million years at best. But being the results of observations, would it break logic if observational science were to lift the veil of the big bang and peak back a second before the big bang and catch a glimpse of a thumb pushing over the first domino? Yes I describe it in anthropomorphic terms using thumbs and dominos, but I fail to see anything tautological in what I’m talking about. My prior is we would not see a thumb pushing over the first domino, but it is only a prior.
This sounds too much like an anthropic argument, which reduces to tautology. We see ourselves in the universe because the universe contains us.
A thing we know for sure about the universe is that we are in it. As far as that goes perhaps it is tautology. But the properties we observe about ourselves I don’t believe are tautological, are they? Properties such as our conscious intelligence, there is nothing tautological about observing in myself that I have this, and that I am in the universe and that therefore the universe has this as part of it?
Further enhancing the question, how is it any more logical to assume a pre-existing material universe without any intelligence in it, and “observe” that intelligence arises in it without requiring intelligence to already be in it in any sense of those words, vs. presuming that there was a pre-existing intelligence universe from which a material universe arises, which is essentially the theist viewpoint? IF it has to be one of the other, if either intelligence or material has to come first, then to the extent humans can conclude anything from scientific observation, they can see evidence of a material universe going back 12, 14 billion years, but clear evidence of intelligence going back only a few hundred million years at best. But being the results of observations, would it break logic if observational science were to lift the veil of the big bang and peak back a second before the big bang and catch a glimpse of a thumb pushing over the first domino? Yes I describe it in anthropomorphic terms using thumbs and dominos, but I fail to see anything tautological in what I’m talking about. My prior is we would not see a thumb pushing over the first domino, but it is only a prior.