Convergence or divergence? (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, September 08, 2013, 17:18 (4094 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Universal intelligence as far as I am concerned.-dhw: I was referring to our theory of the "intelligent cell". Convergence involves individual organisms coming up with similar solutions. That can only mean each organism has its OWN intelligence, regardless of whether there is a UI that designed the intelligence in the first place.-DAVID: It is YOUR intelligent cell. I view the cell as containing information which it is programmed to use intelligently with automatic chemical responses, controlled by tight feed-back loops.-It seems to me that any organism which uses information intelligently can be called intelligent. We talk of man-made machines as artificial intelligence, and their organic equivalent as natural intelligence. Whether it has been divinely designed or has evolved without outside intervention makes no difference: natural intelligence is intelligence. -dhw: Each eye suggests an intelligent invention. Six different eyes suggest six intelligent inventions by six "converging" intelligences. They all strongly suggest intelligence within the DNA. If that is what you mean by "planning", I agree, but I suspect you are referring to a single universal planner who is mysteriously both within and without DNA. That's different.-DAVID: That is where we differ: as stated above I do not agree that the cells are independently intelligent. It is how they are organized to use their information and how they respond attests to the intelligence that created them.-For any theist, human intelligence also "attests" to the intelligence that created it. That doesn't make humans into automated robots, even though most if not all our internal cell communities ... heart, liver, blood, lungs, kidneys etc. ... work independently of our control. There has to be an additional mechanism that enables humans as well as cells and cell communities to innovate and to adapt their behaviour. You seem to be suggesting that your God preprogrammed six different sets of cells to produce six different types of eye. But in that case, if cells are incapable of independent intelligent action, your God must have preprogrammed or directly created every single innovation, variation and adaptation you can think of. Believe that if you will, but if you don't, your only alternative is to believe that six different sets of cells acted independently and intelligently, whether God created their intelligence or not.