"If we look at a closed system , as materialists suppose our universe to be , and look strictly at the material , physical events occurring within it , and assume that it is receiving no further 'physical ' inputs than were the 'initial conditions ' of the 'Big Bang ' , then it becomes plausible to believe , as materialist/mechanists most adamantly insist , that every single change event that occurred , is occurring , or ever will occur , was predestined , immutable , and inevitable , no matter whether it was anomalous or was systematic , right down to the last typo I 've made so far in this post . All thanks to what they label as 'inititial conditions ' . In the case of 'the big bang ' they 've another word for that , too , -- something that call a 'singularity ' . One more cute bumper-sticker that has no real meaning behind it at all . Seen from that angle , everything that occurs in any 'system ' is simply a continuation of the action of the 'drivers ' involved in the 'initial conditions ' , no matter how protracted that action may be . The 'initial conditions ' of 'the break ' in a game of billiards determining exactly where each ball will end up , no matter how many ricochets it makes off rails and other balls . And so on for each shot throughout the systematized process that is the game entire . And that is very much the view of the universe 's internal systems as held by materialists today . The closed system that is the universe seen as a variation on a pool shot , i.e. , `` assumed `` , 'taken for granted ' , initial conditions determining various dissipatory extentions in subsequents events , until 'the table ' is all used up , entropically . All 'systems ' , be they physical or biological , as allopoietic strings of predestined and mechanically inevitable entropic outcomes . That mentality is utterly satisfactory until it slams into a brick wall called biology . All of a sudden we have autopoietic systems where phenomena are observed that can not be justified or rationalised in terms of 'initial conditions ' , nor in terms of additional external physical inputs , and allopoietic controls , but only in terms of initial and continuing psychical inputs . This does not stop true-believing materialists from trying to rationalise these psychical biological phenomena back into their mechanical mindset , however . We hear new magic words from them intead . Words like , 'epiphenomena ' and 'emergence ' . More euphemisms for 'spontaneous generation ' , aka , 'creatio ex nihilo , ab nihilo ' . Aka , 'magick ' . Materialism , and the darwinism it spawned , is an extremely superstitious mindset ."
"But here I slam into my own brick wall , one which neatly intersects my path down your chain of reasoning . Biological systems are simply orders of magnitude more complex than any other chemical processes because they are , by definition , autocatalytic-with-errors systems , which is a giant leap in terms of potential , in terms of the variety of future system-states that can be generated . But it is still possible to model these system-state trajectories in terms of probability , which is where chaos theory and emergence come in . To bring myself to a close , I return to my original point . The concept 'emergence ' is a human-imposed concept that can be easily described , if you so wish , as new information arising in a system ex nihilo . But it is equally easily ( and more precisely ) described as a rearrangent of a system 's information in a way that is specifically unpredictable . That is what emergence is . There is no 'energy ' created ex nihilo . There is no 'matter ' created ex nihilo . The only thing that seems to be created ex nihilo is that sudden realisation within the human mind that the patterns of information have drastically changed in a way that redefines the entire system . This is why maths is essential , because the maths shows that the system has merely been reorganised , albeit radically . It is such radical restructuring of information that I suspect gives rise to apparent consciousness . As I have said before , I do not deny consciousness , and I do prefer to think that it is real . But I do not assume that it is anything but apparent when I am making analytical judgements , and I can not begin to imagine how you come to the conclusion that organisms such as bacteria possess it when they specifically , are quite obviously and evidently , no more than fiendishly complex micromachinery . With mammals it 's another story ."
"then it becomes plausible to believe , as materialist/mechanists most adamantly insist , that every single change event that occurred"
"But here I slam into my own brick wall , one which neatly intersects my path down your chain of reasoning ."