Our reality keeps evolving (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, May 24, 2016, 20:32 (2891 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: But once a mechanism for life and evolution is functioning, how do you know what it is capable of, and how do you know where (theistic version) your God's advanced planning ends and his mechanism takes over?
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> DAVID: I have no way of knowing. All of evolution shows organisms of increasing complexity in form and lifestyle. So I propose an internal drive to complexity in the mechanism, which as I have pointed out is not necessarily improvement. 
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> dhw: Complexity for the sake of complexity seems to me to be pointless, but the critical issue is the degree of autonomy enjoyed by the mechanism itself. If you accept that your God may have given organisms the freedom to complexify without his "guidance" (= instructions and/or intervention to create the new complexity) - though reserving the right to dabble - I shall sing another hallelujah! - You keep wondering about the bushiness of the bush. This is what complexity for the sake of complexity brings. It also brings the most complex of all, humans, in phenotype and in consciousness. If we could find the mechanism for complexification, perhaps then we would know how much freedom God gave it. Now it is guesswork.