An inventive mechanism (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, October 03, 2014, 18:18 (3486 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Once again you are shifting the focus of this discussion from how evolution might work to the origin of life and of whatever mechanisms have led to evolution. Your answer is that God did it, but you don't know how, and then you expect me to tell you how it was done! I don't know.
DAVID: And, of course, neither do I. But in discussing evolution it is not possible to exclude from such discussion the start of life, since DNA is implanted with the startup information which is then continuously used as experience and new information is added. It is all one continuum. -Agreed, but you keep hammering away at First Cause: “Where did the information come from?” “I want you to tell me how you think it all happened to start life.” “Dawkins says life appears designed, but is not. I say it is designed. Your position, please!” I am happy purely for the sake of this discussion to say God did it, because my focus is on the nature of the mechanism that runs evolution, not on how the mechanism got here. Hence the heading of this thread.-dhw: Do you think your God is incapable of designing an autonomously inventive mechanism (even though you believe he has done so with the human brain)? Please answer.
DAVID: The human brain can continuously transform its functional abilities simply from the experience of it being used in different ways. That is an magnificent example of autonomous inventiveness. So we have an example of an existing organ that can do it. As a result I strongly feel that God might have implanted a mechanism for speciation in the genome, as I have mentioned before.-This is the sort of equivocation that leads to so many misunderstandings. The question is whether the mechanism is autonomously inventive or preprogrammed. Yet again you appear to be agreeing with me, but you do not actually say God might have implanted an AUTONOMOUS mechanism. Whenever you appear to agree with me and I stress autonomy, you cry (29 September) “NO WAY!” Then you refer to instructions and blur the borders between the information that your God provided in order to create the mechanism itself, and the information that an autonomous mechanism must process in order to innovate. I hasten to add that I don't think this is a deliberate ploy. Having worked with you, met you, and discussed things with you for so long, I have total respect for your integrity. But the above statement requires clarification. You have repeatedly mentioned the mechanism for speciation only in so far as it contains God's plans for 3.7 billion years' worth of innovations. Do you or don't you now accept the possibility that speciation may be the product of an autonomous inventive mechanism (possibly created by your God) which takes its own unpreprogrammed decisions?-Dhw: Now please tell me why your comprehensive 3.7-billion-year computer programme bothers you, and what evolutionary alternative you can think of.
DAVID: I'm bothered only by not seeing a clear way to guess the correct possibility: (1) 3.7- billion-year coded program, (2) stepping in to dabble, or (3) an offshoot of the 3.7-b-y program, an inventive speciation code which steps in as needed. -Thank you for answering. Once again, though, (3) equivocates. How can an autonomous inventive mechanism be an offshoot of (1)? Either the genome has an autonomous mechanism or it doesn't. You have consistently defined “inventive” in terms of obeying God's instructions, instead of “creating new things and performing new actions without being preprogrammed” (the definition to which you responded with “NO WAY!”). I hope you will now settle this with a direct answer to the question I have asked above.-********-(I'll watch the video tomorrow. Thank you for posting it)