horizontal gene transfer: the real IM? (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 16, 2014, 18:09 (3630 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Such a process would clearly have led to the higgledy-piggledy bush which is such a problem for your anthropocentrism.
DAVID: The h-p bush is your problem not mine. Please think for yourself, as I think the drive for humans to appear is perfectly compatible with the bush of life, as I have previously explained many times citing the balance of nature being a natural and also required condition for life in general. -I'm not aware of anyone doing my thinking for me, though I know some lovely people who give it a good try! I'm glad you think the higgledy-piggledy bush and the extinction of 99% of species and the ever changing balance of nature are all compatible with your God having planned humans from the start of evolution. That will save you from thinking any more about it.-dhw: You can still hold onto the fact that this whole mechanism is too complex to have arisen by chance, but if you accept these observations, I don't see how you can continue to cling to the idea that the unbridled zeal with which cells form new combinations coincides with your God's meticulous planning of a path leading from bacteria to humans. 
DAVID: As stated above, the whole arrangement can have come from God's planning.-Yes, indeed. Your God could have planned a mechanism that would autonomously and with unbridled zeal create its own combinations (some successful, some unsuccessful).-BBELLA: I can see Sheldrake‘s morphic field and the holographic universe fitting well with the above information. Like minds coming from different angles (with words) toward the same information/images.
dhw: I'd be interested to know the extent to which you see morphic fields and the holographic universe fitting in with the panpsychist hypothesis that all things have their own form of “quasi-consciousness” or “intelligence” (inverted commas, because this should not be equated with human consciousness and intelligence).-DAVID: I accept Sheldrake's human consciousness work, having studied his findings, but his morphic fields as well as holographic universe theories are just proposals, without any basis in study. And yes, cells under the guidance of their genomes do appear to act intelligently, or perhaps they have been intelligently planned to act that way.-Your first cause, eternally conscious energy is just a proposal, without any basis in study. And cells that appear to act intelligently may be intelligent, and perhaps their intelligence was designed to act autonomously.