Species consciousness and instinct. (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, October 29, 2013, 22:05 (4043 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: How can an automaton have "leeway in choice"? With what faculty does it make its choice?
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> DAVID: No problem. the intelligent info in the DNA offeres A,b, or c as responses to varying stimuli.
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> dhw: A, b and c are the alternatives. You have not indicated the faculty that enables the automaton to make its choice between the three of them. If the choice itself is preprogrammed, there is no leeway.-What is wrong with controlled leeway?
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> dhw: And that is what I'm trying to clarify. There are usually limited choices, even when humans are placed in a certain situation. The question is the extent to which the organism makes its own decisions. An automaton has no freedom of choice. Even if the cells have "limited choices", they still can't be automatons!-Just explained above.
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> DAVID: Of course. that is why life is so inventive. Six pairs of eyes. I don't know why it is so difficult to understand, until I remember you don't want to make choices. Only proof solid of every step from amoeba to humans. Good luck.-
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> dhw: Once again, you are shifting the focus. I am weighing one theistic concept of evolution against another: 1) God preprogrammed everything from the start except for what he didn't preprogramme, and you ain't gonna tell me which you think is which, or how automatons are able to make their own (limited) decisions; 2) God created a mechanism that would enable organisms to cooperate intelligently and invent an almost limitless variety of living things. (The latter version need not be theistic, but this discussion is not about the existence of God, it's only about the process of evolution.) I do not need to make a choice ... there is no gun to my head. But without a more detailed explanation of the first, I find the second much easier to understand and visualize.-As a theistic evolutionist, I'm more comfortable with (1). I can't explain it any better since we have no real idea how evolution works. We have Darwin's guesses and they are not worth much. As I have often said, making a kidney by chance doing the planning is impossible. With (2) avoiding the word 'invent', if cells carefully cooperatively followed a plan in DNA, that would work. Cells don't invent, but are allowed a small number of tentative epigenetic variations, but that will never got you a kidney.