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Originally Posted by ARTelevision
I'm thinking this through and will have a comment at some point, I'm sure.
The thing is, I'm reluctant to go much farther in my own speculation because I see how difficult it is for people to even accept the fact that we - as intelligent beings - are proof positive that "intelligence is a part of the universe."
The kind of resistance to accepting this most simple formulation does stun me - although I see us making some real progress here in this Forum and that may be historic in itself!
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The resistance tends not to be that simple statement, but rather the unsubstantiated inferences and implication-laden language you dress that statement up with, art. Going from "there exists blue" to "the universe is blue" or "we live in a blue universe" is silly, as is going from "there exists intelligence" to "the universe is intelligent" or "we live in an intelligent universe". Adjective positions signify meaning.
If you mean a null statement by your statement, then I'll agree with you. I'll agree with any null statement that is clearly a null statement. =p
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Originally Posted by Lebell
Since our thoughts are manifestations of this matter/energy in the form of electrical impulses dancing among neurons and are thus energy itself, is it unreasonable to posit a being for whom the organization and self awareness exists but without have to have been condensed to a matter state?
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Just to be clear, what do you mean by 'matter' and 'energy' here? If you mean matter as in 'particles known by particle physics', then mankind has never even found energy that isn't in the form of (or 'carried by') matter (and vice versa).
If you mean bayronic matter, this changes things.
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Originally Posted by ARTelevision
We tend to do this now and it gets us into all sorts of trouble. We end up having to invent non-observables, such as "dark matter," and populate the majority of the universe with it in order to make our schemes work out, etc.
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The postulated Dark matter isn't a non-observable: it was postulated to explain observations, and makes various predictions. And it isn't nessicary, it is just a working hypothesis: non-uniform gravity, and other alternatives to Dark matter, are also out there.
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Originally Posted by ARTelevision
A universe described by man must be called an intelligent universe. To think otherwise is to suffer from hubris.
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Once again, you wander off on an unjustified tangent, or have redefined terms to fit your arguement. You changed the meaning of using "intelligent" as an adjective in order to make your arguement true. Semantics is a fun short-term game, but boring in the long term.
I object to your arguements and statements because they appear to be semantic, circular and empty of implication. At the same time, they are worded in inflamatory ways. "Intelligent universe", read without the semantic juggling you have done, is an article of faith or insanity. "Intelligent universe", once reduced to a null-phrase by your semantic juggling, is meaningless.
Going back to the original post, I suspect Intelligence is a property of types of information processing, rather than a direct property of energy or matter.
All known information processing requires energy and 'matter' of one kind or another. Pure photons (if that is what you mean by pure energy) have issues processing information, because they have issues interacting with each other. They move too fast, mass too little, and don't have charge. A purely attractive force (gravity) might also have problems facilitating information processing (sort of like how you can't sail without two mediums providing non-parallel forces). With only gravity to process information with, I could see there being not enough 'traction' to 'think' with, if that makes sense. This is, however, just a postulate, nothing concrete.