Convergence or divergence? (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 11, 2013, 17:02 (4091 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I also have information in my DNA which I inherited (i.e. I did not "initially develop it"). ...... But I know how to use the information I have, and that is why I am able to solve (some) problems, invent (a few) things, (sometimes) adapt to different environments and challenges. If I do so, I'm regarded as intelligent (at least by me), but if cells and ants do it, apparently they're not.-DAVID: Apples and oranges. You can solve problems, plan, think through inventions. the ants and cells are not working at your level. You can't equate the levels.-I'm not equating the levels. Of course ants and cells don't have the many layers of consciousness that we have ... that is evident from the vast range of our technologies and cultures. But intelligence is not an absolute. (Margulis: "Bacterial awareness is more limited than that of the human mind" but, still talking about bacteria, "the idea that only people are conscious makes me laugh.") You cannot deny that cells and ants solve problems, plan, invent, adapt, but you say: "It is my assumption that 99.9% of their activity is controlled by instinct". I'm challenging your assumption, and note that you continue to ignore my questions about why one large ant decided to block the jaws of the mantis, and how other ants devised and implemented the strategy to decapitate the attacker. My point is that any organism that can solve problems, plan, innovate, adapt to different environments and situations has to be intelligent. That doesn't mean every organism has the same level or kind of intelligence as a human being!-The hypothesis of the intelligent cell (whether invented by your God or not) as the driving force of evolution seems to me to explain all the problems thrown up by Darwin's theory. You yourself have actually accepted the concept several times, with the proviso that your God invented it and sometimes guided it. But although you can find no rational argument to dismiss it, you still keep trying to do so. I wonder why.