Review of Spetner's book (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, November 26, 2014, 00:07 (3650 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: I'm not sure what you mean by “natural law requirements”, but otherwise I accept your philosophical point. That hardly justifies your rejecting the hypothesis of an autonomous inventive mechanism while at the same time agreeing that no one knows how genes create animals and we are at a very early stage of knowledge!-It means there might be laws in nature requiring a specific outcome. We are arguing autonomous vs. semiautonomous. I prefer the latter. That is our only difference.
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> We all know that cells and organisms work at a molecular signalling level, but you assume that is all they can do, even though you also know that human and animal organisms can work at a much higher level. “Consciousness” is a misleading word, as it can imply self-awareness of the human type. Scientists like Margulis, Shapiro, McClintock and Albrecht-Buehler have shown repeatedly that cells have their own kind of “intelligence”.-You are conflating cellular sentience and whole organ (brain) consciousness. That argument won't work for me, because its apples and oranges all over again. Cells work at a molecular level. Their molecular reactions to stimuli and stress are shown over and over again in the literature and carefully explained. Once again you have overinflated M, S, McC, and A-B. I suggest you read their work directly not the interpretations thereof.-> dhw: In my hypothesis the original genomes contained the inventive mechanism (“intelligence”) which was passed on and created the basic patterns as and when environmental conditions demanded or allowed.-And my hypothesis is that basic patterns of body forms, chemical reactions, and certain life styles are set in the origin of life and modified by a semi-autonomous IM as evolution progressed.
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> Again I would avoid “conscious”. I do regard an autonomous inventive mechanism (with the theistic version allowing for dabbling) as a more likely hypothesis than chance or your divine preprogramming of the first cells with all innovations and complex lifestyles, including route maps for every migrating organism, for the next 3.7 billion years (see under DILEMMAS). “All of their own evolution” would include the source of the IM, and there I remain firmly on the fence.-I certainly respect your pointed sitting spot. And you want the word 'autonomous' to be carefully chosen as describing the IM, because that approach reduces the perceived power of God, and suggests He might not be there at all, despite your bow to a 'theistic hat' wearing thesis. I stand by my view that there must be a conscious first cause energy capable to planning the reality we have, and currently using the quantum level of reality to accomplish the job.