Species consciousness and instinct. (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, October 30, 2013, 18:50 (4042 days ago) @ David Turell

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.-DAVID: What is wrong with controlled leeway?-The control lies in the limitation of choice (your a, b, c). But you still have not explained how an automaton can CHOOSE between a, b and c. And of course you can't, because you know as well as I do that an automaton cannot make decisions of its own. That is one reason why your scenario doesn't make sense to me.
 
Dhw: 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.)
 
DAVID: 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. -And that is why we propose different theories, which we then subject to our phenomenal powers of reasoning! You and I cannot believe in chance (Darwin's random mutations). You have offered a different theory which is so contradictory and when followed to its logical conclusion (see below) so far-fetched that I'm tempted to use some of the terms you have levelled against those scientists who call for further research into the intelligence of cells. DAVID: With (2) avoiding the word 'invent', if cells carefully cooperatively followed a plan in DNA, that would work.-Another way of saying that cells are preprogrammed to cooperate and obey God's plans to create trilobite eyes, spider eyes, fly eyes, eagle eyes, human eyes...Substitute every organ you can think of in that list. All preprogrammed into the first living organisms (since you believe evolution happened).
 
DAVID: Cells don't invent, but are allowed a small number of tentative epigenetic variations, but that will never got you a kidney.-You have given us a nice example of ant symbiosis: Natures wonders: triple symbiosis (Introduction)-http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=R5piJCyHwtw-but you still won't make the connection. Did God preprogramme this three-way symbiosis into the first living cells, or could it be an example of how organisms cooperate individually and independently? Please multiply this example by zillions of such cases, in which cell communities (billions of cells) cooperate to invent new organs and new lifestyles. (See also under "Precambrian environment") Not by chance ... we've both agreed on that ... but by the intelligence with which your God may have endowed them. If cells (cell communities) don't invent, then ALL of them must be automatons, and ALL innovations must have been preprogrammed. Multiple (even if limited) choice exam papers for cells and ants require cellular and formic intelligence and decision-making. Automatons are not endowed with intelligence or the ability to make decisions. You can't have it both ways.