Species consciousness and instinct. (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, October 26, 2013, 18:17 (4046 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Despite your claim that you don't try to read God's mind, you insist that he created life and evolution to end up with human beings. ..... The confusion is all too evident in our next exchange:-DAVID: No I think the confusion is yours.-Wrong reference. I wrote: "You have said repeatedly that divine programming is the only explanation for innovations, and all cells communities are automatons, and yet there is room for individual decision-making." That is confusing.-dhw:Information of how to use information = instructions. If you have a million situations, you need a million sets of instructions. Are cells (cell communities) compelled to follow specific instructions, or do they have information that enables them to make their own choices? If they are compelled, they are preprogrammed automatons. -DAVID: I've said they are automatons over and over. But I assume they have a small set of choices based on the type and strength of stimuli they receive. -Yes, you have said that. But you have also said that God didn't design everything, gave living organisms the ability to respond with unique answers, and gave them some degree of "epigenetic" decision-making. Hence the following direct questions that I put to you:-dhw: I just want to clarify your basic premises. Do you believe God preprogrammed the first cells to produce all the innovations that have led from eukaryotes to us humans? If so, did God preprogramme all the pre-human variations on these innovations (leading to the billions of different species), or did the cell communities have the ability to take their own decisions?-DAVID: Again, explained above. Cell response depends uppon type of stimulus received.-The Mayweather sidestep. All responses depend on the type of stimulus received. The question is the freedom of choice in the response. Do you, for example, believe your God specifically preprogrammed fly eyes, brontosaurus eyes, octopus eyes, eagle eyes, human eyes...or did he give each cell community (organism) the ability to develop its own form of vision, just as the ant community may well have developed its own architecture, lifestyle and strategies through the collaboration of many individual intelligences?