Cell Memories (Identity)

by dhw, Wednesday, October 30, 2013, 18:40 (4041 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: We have a very different view of evolution. You seem convinced that there is one plan, with humans at the end of it. I see billions of species coming and going higgledy-piggledy (the equivalent perhaps of your helter skelter), and wonderful though it is, this colossal variety and endless process of appearance and disappearance suggests precisely the opposite of your single-minded planner: all kinds of creative forces at work, some more successful than others. No matter whether I wear my theist hat (see under "Species consciousness"), my atheist hat, my either-way-panpsychist hat, I still can't see the higgledy-piggledy bush as "one plan".-DAVID: Why not. Life requires fuel to survive. Plants grow and animals eat them. Animals eat animals. Red in tooth and claw, per Tennyson. There is a marvelous system of natural balances, which we humans constantly try to disrupt. But it is that diverse balance which keeps everything going. Perhaps required for life to continue and therefore part of the original plan for life by the Great Planner.-You are right, and in my theist hat I was focusing too closely on your anthropomorphic scenario. The great plan would be the higgledy-piggledy comings and goings themselves, which I do find reasonable: your God entertaining himself or experimenting. What my theistic reason cannot cope with is the idea that trilobites and dinosaurs and all the other extinct creatures with their zillions of innovations were preprogrammed into the first living organisms as part of the great plan to hatch humans. (See under "Species consciousness")