An inventive mechanism (Evolution)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Thursday, September 04, 2014, 04:44 (3732 days ago) @ dhw

DHW: You are quite right. A failed experiment will have resulted in death, and so the knowledge could not have been passed on. ....
> -Typically engineers/designers leave their notes, and even if they don't leave notes, others analyze the events surrounding their demise to construct how the failure occurred. Do you think cells have this ability, either the ability to leave notes with remarks about what failed and why, or the ability to conceptually construct why another organism failed in its experiment??- 
> TONY: The idea of progressive evolution through innovation is also just speculation without evidence. [...] We are trying to explain something that we have not observed but speculate about with theoretical processes that we have not observed but speculate about. 
> 
> Agreed, and speculation applies just as much to your theories about God as it does to any other hypotheses. This is where it gets interesting. David believes evolution happened through innovation (so do I), and for him that means God preprogramming every single innovation into the first living cells. You clearly favour dabbling (= creationism). I'll go along with theism for the sake of this discussion, and offer a third option: God created a mechanism capable of doing its own inventing.... I presume neither of you consider your God incapable of creating such a mechanism, since you believe he's already done so: ... presumably Tony, you think he created humans separately, along with different species (spider/dragonfly/dog/alligator). Perhaps you and David can explain why you don't like each other's speculative hypotheses.
>-Sorry, I thought I had been clear on that. I do not believe in divergence through gradual evolution beyond the species level. As for how God did it, I can't say, only speculate as we so often do. -I think of creation as a giant computer program. (Quantum) Physics acts as a native instructions for the machine logic, applying the required force to operate the components. On top of that you have Chemistry, which acts like a sort of "assembly" language, under and interfacing with the rules of physics. On top of that, you have the basic rules of biology, that work as an operating system, using the language of Chemistry. Within this framework you have DNA which acts like C++, a compilation of digital "libraries", bits of programs that are known to work very efficiently and can be organized in numerous different ways to create any possible program you can conceive of by arranging them in different ways. Just like a master engineer/programmer could create a computer starting with nothing but sand (silicon), time, and energy, I think God used pretty much the same methodology. - 
> TONY: Well, it is less fanciful than saying that a cluster of cells first conceived the concept of a string/web, then the concept of shooting said web out their rears, then invented the concept of silk that is stronger than steel, then performed the chemical engineering to figure out how to make it [etc.] 
> 
>DHW: I'd like to reproduce this in its entirety because it's so beautiful, but space is limited. Thank you. -You're welcome. :)->DHW: The complexity of all living things is a major factor in my inability to embrace atheism. But even if I believed in God, (a)I would find it difficult to conceive of such a programme being inserted into the first living cells, along with the zillions of other programmes that have led from single cells to humans (David's preferred hypothesis). I have equal difficulty imagining your God painstakingly and - presumably - psychokinetically manipulating globules of matter to separately create the process you've so beautifully described, along with every other such process and every different species (although apparently he did install a mechanism to allow cell communities to organize variations within the same species). You may argue that what I can imagine is no test of truth - but where's the evidence for these hypotheses? All three explanations are speculations, and I'm the only one of us three who doesn't actually believe in any of them.
>-The evidence is in the DNA, the laws of Chemistry, and the laws of Physics and Quantum Physics. Further, if we assume that there is a God, and that God exists as some form of energy, then it is only logical that he could manipulate energy as easily as we manipulate matter being material creatures. Since all matter is comprised of energy, his creating matter is no different kind than our creating buildings or other constructions out of raw matter. -
 
> dhw: Therefore there are gaps in our knowledge, and your theory depends just as much as mine on speculation as to what lies in those gaps.
> DAVID: True, but my problem with your theory is that you are giving properties to cells taht I know they do not have and are not capable of using. 
> 
>DHW: You do not know this. You believe it, just as you believe your God's all-encompassing computer programme will be found hidden somewhere in the cells.-The program has already been found. Multitudes of programs have been found. The all encompassing program, the operating system if you will, is in the laws of biochemistry, its hardware platform is the material world, and it, just like a computer, requires energy input in order to carry out it's instructions. It's circuits are controlled according to the laws of physics which govern energy.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.