Innovation (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, May 13, 2013, 14:43 (4213 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The invention itself is NOT random. The key issue between us is HOW innovations are created.-DAVID: Agreed. Livers appeared when predation appeared and the eaten had to be assimilated through digestion. You accept punc inc but don't appear incredulous at the sudden appearance of the hunter and the hunted in the Cambrian.-It clearly happened, and so the question is why. And because we all like to try and solve mysteries, I am offering a hypothetical solution. The most likely trigger is a massive change in the environment. This would have allowed existing organisms equally massive opportunities for innovation. The intelligent cell/genome/DNA within existing organisms therefore came up with a vast array of innovations. This makes sense to me. I think it makes sense to you too, provided I insert the word God (see later).
 
DAVID: Digestive tracts had to come all made at once. Just have the stomach and intestine is not enough. Livers and pancreas must be added at the same time, and they are all made from very different cells, organized in very different ways. There is specified complexity at this stage of species development. One part does not work without the others.-And that is precisely why cells have to cooperate. If the plan is within the genome, it has to direct operations, and the cells respond accordingly.
 
DAVID: What I don't know, and you keep asking, does God step in and adjust things or it is all in the plan from the beginning?-And if he has to step in, I keep asking you HOW he does it.
 
DAVID: I've answered with my admitted ignorance on display above. I don't know how much God preplanned in the genome and how much tweaking He had to do. I just know He was the production manager. Nothing else makes sense.-I offered you a divine scenario: "God has implanted in the genome the ability to invent new organs to cope with or exploit changes in the environment. The genome gives out instructions to all the different cells, which cooperate, as instructed, to build the liver." (Plus, of course, everything it is connected to). In my view, this obviates the need for tweaking, even during the Cambrian. It also obviates the need for millions of innovations to have been preprogrammed in the very first life forms and handed down through billions of years and zillions of generations of different organisms (a scenario which does indeed make me incredulous). What are your objections?
 
However, if he does tweak, I would still like to know how YOU think he does it: telekinesis, operations in his skylab, magic? You are constantly dismissing my panpsychist hypothesis as nebulous, which I freely admit, and pressing me for details which I cannot provide. I demand equal rights for agnostics!