Natures wonders: Cellular intelligence derailed? (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, December 19, 2013, 15:53 (3992 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: So when organisms succeed, they have been preprogrammed to do so, but when they fail, it's bad luck. So much for teleology.
DAVID: Don't throw out teleology so quickly. No one said it had to be a straight efficient path to humans.-Maybe it didn't have to be a path to humans at all. But from my subjective standpoint, I would have expected your almighty God to rely on skill rather than luck if he had a particular purpose in mind.
 
Dhw: As for your revision of my theistic slant, why not stick to "God put intelligence in the cells to allow them to adapt as conditions changed"? Then you needn't flap around trying to explain God's purposeful preprogramming mingled with lots of bad luck, the first tiny cells being bunged up with billions of programmes, and God butting in to show the fire ants how to make themselves into a raft.
DAVID: God did but in the only version I favor: intelligent information to be used by the cells through their genome. The codes operate by using intelligent information.-Obfuscation. Cells using intelligent information...codes using intelligent information...In computers this is called Artificial Intelligence, so in living organisms some of us would call it natural intelligence.-Dhw (to Tony): The scenario David categorically rejects is that your God may have invented an intelligent mechanism which went its own way ... creating a history of success and failure, full of surprise and variety (which I'd have thought would be much more entertaining for a creator anyway). 
DAVID: More entertaining, which gives God a personality that may well not be warranted. We know that success and failure led to humans, so the process worked, even if the exact details are mysterious.-Carts before horses. You assume the process was meant to lead to humans. It also led to every single species that is still in existence. Your version of God has him messing things up on the way to fulfilling his purpose (success and failure). My version at least gets rid of the blinkers and the lousy sense of direction. However, if I did believe in God, I would not object to the idea of the occasional dabble. It's the colossal scale and detailed plans behind your hypothetical preprogramming of the very first living cells that I find so unbelievable when set against evolutionary history.