Proof of ID (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 24, 2013, 13:15 (3987 days ago) @ David Turell

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2013/press.html -DAVID: The problem for dhw is that all of this is at a biochemical molecular level...
Dhw: I do not have a problem with the fact that all the observable physical activities occur at a biochemical molecular level. Scientists searching for the source of human intelligence will also observe the biochemical processes at work in the brain, and many will conclude that it is all a matter of biochemistry. But in that context, you don't. You confine your conclusion to cells, cell communities and insects, and change tack when it comes to the intelligence of humans and, to a lesser degree, that of our fellow animals. Then, suddenly, we have the phenomenon of emergence: human intelligence, you believe, is not confined to biochemistry, but "emerges" from the interplay between biochemistry and quantum energy. Can you find that by examining the human brain? No. And if it's there, you won't find it by examining cellular transport systems either (including those in the brain). The question is always what controls the biochemistry. If you say it's God's programming of the chemicals, and these act automatically, then you may as well say the same about human intelligence, since all scientists can observe at the moment is biochemistry.-DAVID: The problem you are skirting in the term 'emergence'. We don't know how life as a phenomenon emerges from the biochemical factory that is the cell, and cells as they cooperate in their various activities. We don't know how mind and consciousness emerge from the brain and its biochemical processes. It is like pornography. Hard to define but I know it when I see or read it. I know my consciousness because I have it. I know I am alive, but I cannot explain life. And neither can anyone else! That is why the debates about free will. That is why proving a method for the origin of life is really impossible. We don't really know what we are proving. That is what is so amazing. Life and consciousness boil down to a basic structure of automatons of cells, and from that life and consciousness appear. If that sounds miraculous, it is, and that is why I need a supernatural source, a universal consciousness we call God.-If I may say so, this is an excellent, lucid and logical summary of all our problems except one ... which is what I've tried to cover in the post to which you've replied. I'm not skirting the problem of 'emergence' at all, but once more objecting to your blithe assumption that cells and cell communities such as bacteria and ants are automatons. This may be a crucial factor in our understanding of how evolution works, and it does not in any way lessen the miraculousness of life, evolution and consciousness. You say you know your intelligence because you have it (I prefer "intelligence" to consciousness), but you have no way of knowing whether cells and cell communities have their own form of 'emergent' intelligence. When scientists examine the biochemistry of the cell, you say it's all biochemistry, and cells are automatons (some of the scientists disagree with you). When they examine the biochemistry of human brain cells, you say there's more than biochemistry. I understand your thinking about the latter, but cannot understand your rigid insistence on the former. Why can't you keep an open mind on the subject? It still leaves the way wide open to ID and your universal consciousness.