An inventive mechanism (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, September 29, 2014, 16:01 (3706 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by dhw, Monday, September 29, 2014, 16:18

DAVID: [...] we have agreed that the genome may well contain an inventive mechanism which can take the organism beyond mere adaptation and create a new species.-Such an agreement is meaningless if you insist that “inventive” means obeying God's instructions as opposed to making autonomous decisions.-DAVID: What you have not accepted is a cause for the presence of intelligent information in the genome. It will need lots of intelligent information to change an organism into an entirely new species. Invention requires thought an planning to intergrate all the new parts so they work together. -Of course I accept all of this. Any innovation requires collecting, processing and integrating information, and working out new ways of using it. How this is done is the mystery we're trying to solve. Leaving aside your dabbling God, what you have apparently not accepted is the possibility that instead of him putting plans into the very first forms of life for every single innovation, natural "wonder" and probably environmental change to cover the next 3.7 billion years - a hypothesis which unsurprisingly you admit does bother you - he may have equipped those first sentient beings with an autonomous, intelligent mechanism that would in due course enable their descendants spontaneously (i.e. without instructions) to combine and collaborate in exchanging information and working out new ways to cope with or exploit new conditions.
 
DAVID:[...] I suspect there is some byplay between environment and genome responsiveness.-Since all organisms must cope with their environment, and environments change, I'd have thought “byplay” was putting it mildly.
 
dhw: The theistic version would be that your God gave the driver the autonomous ability to choose his route and steer the car. But I find the hypothesis itself far clearer than this analogy.
DAVID: Only because your position has to avoid a universal consciousness. If you don't accept chance where did the genome get its intelligent information in the first place? -The issue we are discussing is not First Cause but evolutionary innovation. In any case, my position allows for a universal consciousness. The “intelligent information” your God may have provided in the first place is everything that goes to make up the cell, including its ‘inventive mechanism' or ‘brain'.
 
DAVID: The genome itself within established species is also mostly very automatic.
dhw: Innovations would occur when the genome is NOT automatic, i.e. when it is confronted with new conditions which demand or allow new organs, functions, and/or modes of behaviour.
DAVID: Agreed, but new architecture requires an architectural plan that coordinate the new parts. Darwinian itty-bitty advances aren't apparent. And, I repe, we have discarded chance. What is left? For you, your nebulous concept is that cells can conjure up a new species, by influencing their genomes.-I repeat: My hypothesis dispenses with itty-bitty advances, because the innovation must work at once or it won't survive. I repeat: I have never ever said that cells conjure up new species by influencing their genomes. I repeat: The genome, the ‘brain' of the cell/cell community, coordinates the information gathered by the cell/cell community and works out the new combination.
 
DAVID: The closest you and I have gotten together is the possibility of an inventive mechanism in the genome which might possibly account for speciation. 
dhw: And that is all I have ever asked of you: to accept the possibility. Only “inventive” does not mean obeying instructions. It means creating new things and performing new actions without being preprogrammed.
DAVID: NO WAY! It invents with knowledge of instructions and consideration of coordination of parts.-“Knowledge of instructions” can only = doing what God has told it to do. That makes God, not the mechanism, the inventor. In my hypothesis, your God's role would have been to invent the inventive mechanism, just as you might say your God invented the human brain, but humans invented the motor car.
 
DAVID: Did your architect design your house (which I have seen) to make it work the way you wanted it to, or is it a hodgepodge? Species work because they have to work. They have to be designed to work or their attempt at life doesn't work. Natural selection's job is to discard, something the Darwinists have forgotten. Your house worked for you and I found it pleasently designed. Your architect didn't work at random. It seems he knew what he was doing. For me there is no way to avoid design.-Thank you. I like my house too, and it was a memorable pleasure to welcome you to it. Unfortunately, this warm memory has no bearing on our discussion, since my hypothesis does not avoid design. It proposes that evolutionary innovation is designed by an inventive mechanism in the genome, and it allows for that mechanism to have been designed by your God.