Proof of ID (Introduction)

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


> dhw> 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.-Thanks fopr the praise, but I think I am complte imy responsese. See below.-> dhw: 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.-But they are automatons. All of their responses and reactions are biochemical as dictated by information in their genomes.-> dhw: 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),-Major problem here: intelligence is not consciousness. Intelligence can develop in a conscious being, but is not there in the beginning. Intelligence must be earned by study , experience, even introspection. -> dhw: but you have no way of knowing whether cells and cell communities have their own form of 'emergent' intelligence. -Of course they have intelligent information. We are arguing from two different viewpoints. You refuse to separate out the issue that the cell must contain information that is available to the genome. How did the genome gather or develop that information. Information does not come free. It must be acquired. As a professor, you imparted information to your students and they acquired it. Who or what taught the cells their information? -> dhw: When they examine the biochemistry of human brain cells, you say there's more than biochemistry. -No. It is all biochecical reactions even the modification of synapse connections as the brain exhibits its plasticity->dhw: I understand your thinking about the latter, but cannot understand your rigid insistence on the former. -Because you are just as rigid in not recognizing the specific importantce of underlying information. DNA is a double code. Codes impart information. Again, how did the cells acquire that.