Contingent evolution (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, July 01, 2014, 19:42 (3798 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Let me add that in any analysis of how something might work one should not introduce a brick wall as to how it (the process) might have originated. It eliminates any chance of determing the origin of such a process.
 -By "brick wall" I mean that nobody knows. Scientists are still trying to work out how our own intelligence functions. However, I would suggest that the origin of your God's intelligence will always remain unknown, especially since (a) he may not exist, and (b) most believers insist he and it didn't have an origin!-DAVID: A bunch of 'intelligent cells' cooperating to create the complexities of advanced living matter (i.e., humans) did not arrive de novo,as you have indicated. -I never indicated any such thing. I have stated over and over again that the origin is unknown. I have left open the possibility that your God created the intelligent mechanisms in the first place, and I have also left open the possibility of a gradual evolution of intelligence through energy becoming aware of the changes in the matter it has formed (my panpsychist hypothesis).-DAVID: Just stating that cells simply have a form of their own intelligence avoids the issue of automatic behavior as an equal and an INHO more probable mechanism. Particularily because I don't think you fully appreciate the functions within the cell, as my youtube videos, which I provide now and then, clearly show.-It is a hypothesis, and I do not state it as a fact, but many scientists (in particular Margulis and Albrecht-Buehler, who wrote a whole book on the subject) disagree with you. I note your contention that "individual cells are basically automatic biochemical factories", though you grant that when put together they have a "degree of epigenetic adaptability". The whole point is that cells form communities which process information, communicate, take decisions etc. ... all of which are the hallmarks of intelligence. However, I will also grant that active use of intelligence is only necessary when there are new circumstances to be dealt with, and I'm not disputing that many of the functions ARE automatic once a particular innovation has become established. -dhw: I have described how evolution might have proceeded without any intervention by your God. I have left open the question of origins, as that is not the subject of this thread. But since you insist, what I have described contains no evidence for or against the existence of God. Stay at the bottom of the class.-DAVID: The bottom of th class is in rebellion.If you ever saw the movie about a coke bottle appearing in the middle of tribal Africa, you'd understand. Curoius humans want the whole story, not one improbable piece. And you keep forgetting that panpsychism has its origin in a thought that a little of God is in every part of the universe.-Perhaps you should reread Part One of the post with which I opened this thread: "According to David, "God is intelligence", is "both the particles and the organizer of the particles," and is "present in all that IS, living and inorganic"(BBella). This is the most extreme version of theistic panpsychism. I would like to develop a variation on it, with the proviso that I offer it as an alternative, not as a belief." You are perfectly prepared to accept the idea that intelligence is present in all the particles, provided we call it God. The hypothesis I am offering is the same, except that this form of intelligence did not precede the particles but evolved within them. -You were bottom of the class because you refused to stick to the subject, which was not origins but how evolution works. You remain top equal on the subject of origins.