causation (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, June 09, 2014, 16:43 (3820 days ago) @ David Turell

ROMANSH: ...evolution is guided by the environment a living creature finds itself. So in that sense it is guided.
DAVID: Have you followed the epigenetic mechanisms in which the organism seems to mimic Lamark? And guides its own destiny?
Dhw: You said it: the organism guides its own destiny. I repeat: Hallelujah!
-DAVID: Of course those controls exist, but I ask you again, is it likely they developed through a chance evolutionary process or were they there from the start? I don't accept that such mechanisms are self-developed. Their presence makes for enormous genomic complexity, beyond Darwin's own imagination, far beyond the possibility it all developed by chance with no purpose.-I have said repeatedly that I don't believe in chance. I'm an agnostic! The origin of life and of the evolutionary mechanisms remains a mystery, and I have yet to find a solution that convinces me. As for the rest of your post, perhaps the implications of the argument to which you are responding were not clear: -Dhw: Maybe your God created the mechanisms all at the same time. Who knows? This discussion is not about the origin. You have constantly insisted on preprogramming, preplanning and divine intervention as integral to the way evolution progressed. I find this inconsistent with the higgledy-piggledy bush, and have constantly suggested instead (I'm not as insistent on theories as you are) that the mechanisms are within the organisms, which do their own adapting and innovating in accordance with a changing environment.-Once the mechanism is in place, as you have said but perhaps now wish you had not said, "the organism guides its own destiny". The complexity arises from organisms deliberately adapting or innovating in accordance with changes in the environment. The changes in the environment may come about by chance (or do you think your God planned those as well?), but the adaptations and innovations do not. In that sense, evolution does not progress by chance. Exeunt random mutations. As for purpose, it is clearly in the first instance (adaptation) to survive, and in the second (innovation) to improve the organism's ability to master the environment. But perhaps you would explain what YOU meant by "guides its own destiny".