Different in degree or kind (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, November 16, 2013, 19:22 (4025 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: If I was satisfied, I would not have started up this website. But that doesn't mean I should embrace Dawkins' blind faith in chance or your blind faith in a nebulous UI. 
DAVID: But I have watched as I have moved you off your loving embrace of Darwin theory. Chance is one of the things you now can't accept.-I never could. It has always been a major factor in my agnosticism. Perhaps one day you should read the "brief guide", which was my response to Dawkins' The God Delusion. But I don't wish to downplay the role you have played in my education, for which I am profoundly grateful. I am ten times better informed about the scientific background to these arguments, you have clarified many points for me, and by pointing me in the direction of Margulis (much though you may regret it), you have opened up a fascinating new approach to my understanding of how evolution might work. These factors alone would have made the site worthwhile for me, and that's without mentioning the further insights I have gained from contributors like George, BBella, Matt, Tony and many others.-Dhw: You keep asking the same question, and I give you the same reply: the three equally unbelievable hypotheses of 1) God, 2) chance, 3) panpsychist evolution. Why do you refuse to consider the possibility that ant society developed through the intelligence of the organisms themselves?-DAVID: Because intelligence is something that is developed by learning from information that is then collated into concepts and ideas. You have left out the origin of initial information in all of your formulations. Information is part of a first cause.-I agree completely that intelligence evolves with experience and with the continued influx of information. "Concepts and ideas" sounds too abstract for my taste. Generally, animal intelligence is more of the practical "hands/paws/jaws/beaks-on" variety, and I doubt if even new born human babes are bothered about your first cause. For most organisms, information begins with their immediate environment, which is ever changing, and their intelligence requires direct contact with it. It's not the origin of information (i.e. everything in the world around us) that is at issue here, but the origin of the intelligence which uses the information (see my post under "Different...").
 
dhw: The answer to your question is yes, my description requires thought and decisions ... but not the self-aware, self-analytical thought and decisions of humans.
DAVID: I savour the picture of cogitating ants.-Of course you do, because you enjoy ridiculing the idea of ants having intelligence by anthropomorphizing them and then accusing me of anthropomorphizing them.
 
dhw: I did not say we inherited our social rules from ants! You dismissed my list of formic attributes as "the most anthropomorphic rendition I have ever heard". It is not anthropomorphic to say that ant or any other animal society is built on the same ground rules as above ... i.e. those needs which are the reason for all societies, including ours, to form in the first place (even though modern "civilization" has greatly expanded our range). -DAVID: No, you are right, ground rules are ground rules for formation of societal rules. They will generally follow the same path by necessity. But you come across with an anthropormorphic twist to the whole story when you decribe ants. I think they develop their societal habits by trying different reactions automatically and find solutions that way.-How do you experiment and find solutions to countless problems if you are merely an automaton obeying instructions? That would mean that your God preprogrammed the first cells to pass on not only plans for the complex habitats, organization of food supply, education of the young, military strategies etc., but also the errors our ants made along the way! Doesn't this strike you as a little bit far-fetched?-dhw: "Anthropomorphic" is a back-to-front denial of our descent from the animal kingdom.
DAVID: No, equating animal activity in human terms is to be avoided.-Why, when the activities are the same as human activities? What terms would you suggest we use for the above list?