horizontal gene transfer: the real IM? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, December 18, 2014, 01:39 (3411 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: Inexplicable, causeless eternal consciousness is no more imaginable (and in my view no more likely) than inexplicable evolving consciousness. It's a matter of faith, not logic.-It is a matter of logically realizing that only a competent planning consciousness can be the only first cause. First logic, then faith. An inexplicable evolving consciousness must be endowed with potentiality somehow to do what you profess to think might be possible. What makes your ideal IEC evolve? -> 
> dhw:Horizontal gene transfer is a clear example of what I have called intelligent cooperation between cells. No need for anthropomorphic committee meetings. I do not know where the intelligences came from initially, but they might be different aspects of a single intelligence (most panpsychist theories are theistic).-You like panpsychism, or at least you use it as a starting point for your theories. Can it be you are entertaining a switch to theism? -> 
> dhw: My thanks go to you. After months of insisting that God had preplanned everything, and cells were mere automatons obeying his instructions (though perhaps with the ability to make minor adaptations of their own), you now appear to accept the possible autonomy of the inventive mechanism. I do not ask for more.-But you push too far. Semi-autonomy is only as far as I will ever go.
 
> dhw: I have at all times made the concession that the cells' intelligence MAY have been designed by your God. Since you now accept the possible autonomy of cellular (genomic) intelligence, we are in agreement at last. -Make it semi-autonomy and we are in synch.