Intelligence & Evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, November 18, 2013, 20:08 (4021 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Yes, it's a mystery, whichever way you look at it. How can anyone believe that the intricacies of life assembled themselves without any guidance? How can anyone believe that, before the arrival of our universe, the ALL THAT IS consisted of a single, infinite, eternal self-aware mind? It's enough to drive you to agnosticism.
DAVID: It drove St. thomas to believe in God. The intricacies of life and the organization of the universe follow laws and plans. Thopse laws and plans had to come from somewhere.-Indeed. That is the mystery. So St Thomas solved it by creating another mystery.-dhw: Yes again, the cell has to be sentient as well as intelligent. I'm glad you now recognize that individual cells need to have both attributes. But once more you are asking me to explain what no-one on this Earth can explain ... the origin of life and of consciousness.
DAVID: You are again avoiding the question, which is deeper than OOL or consciousness. Where does the information come from that OOL and consciousness use? Information, as a concept, requires a source that supplies information, especially when (not if) the first living cells, complex as they had to be, operated by using that information. Takes us back to Thomism.-Why don't you just say "first cause" instead of beating about the bush? And we have debated this ad nauseam. You think the first cause was eternal self-conscious energy. Please explain how eternal energy can be conscious of itself. Nobody can. You have to accept it on faith. If someone says first cause was unconscious energy, which through matter evolved individual consciousnesses, you can say: Please explain how energy can evolve consciousness. Nobody can. You have to accept it on faith. Please explain how chance could assemble a living cell capable of reproduction and evolution. Nobody can. You have to accept it on faith. We only know that the information is there. We don't know how it got there. ALL explanations depend on faith.-dhw: I agree that the initial cells had to be complex, but do you really believe they were THAT complex?
DAVID: Most of the recent discussions of the form of early life make that assumption. The simplest single-celled forms now living are highly complex. No one can think of a lesser complex form that could remain as living.-No question about it, they are highly complex. Some people even believe they are also intelligent, as you have now acknowledged. But how many researchers do you know of who believe that the first living cells contained billions of programmes that were handed down over billions of years to billions of different organisms, to enable single cells to evolve into humans? -Dhw: (under "God & reality"): Fine up to now. But then he goes and spoils it all with this: "It is something or Someone, that must be revealed and, in fact, has been: "In the beginning, was the Logos." Just like all the others, this is a presupposition, or "fiat" (strange use of the word, but certainly more applicable to religion than to science). The usual atheist pots and theist kettles.-DAVID: Just because he used "Logos" you slip away from the point. The laws, principal requirements of life, the mechanics of the universe all follow rules and laws we can define with our minds. There has to be a source of such an underlying organization of information. Only a thoughtful mind could create such a structure of laws and rules.-Alternatively, unconscious energy produces matter, which by its very nature is constantly changing. Maybe matter follows its own natural laws of self-organization. We humans see what happens, and so we extrapolate laws from what we see. If you insist that you can't make laws without a lawmaker, the atheist has every right to ask what made the maker of the laws. If you insist that consciousness had to be designed, who designed the consciousness of the designer? You would like to see this as an escape route. It's not. It's a logical impasse.