horizontal gene transfer: the real IM? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, December 20, 2014, 00:31 (3626 days ago) @ dhw

dhw:It's your conclusions that are so murky, though you state them with great authority!-It is crystal-clear to me!
 
> dhw: Round and round we go. ... You might ask yourself what your eternally conscious God might have been doing with himself for the eternity that preceded our time.- Amazingly as an agnostic you love to imagine what God might think or might do for entertainment. I never do that, since for me God just IS. ->dhw I don't believe in chance. Nor do I believe in an uncaused conscious mind that creates and encompasses universes. But not believing is not the same as disbelieving.-Just be careful as you spin round and round that your body doesn't end up in a circular anastomosis. -> DAVID: Can it be you are entertaining a switch to theism?[/i]
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> dhw: I use it as an alternative to your God and to chance. Somewhere along the line, there has to be intelligence, but we just don't know where it begins. You say that somehow intelligence has always been there. ... Most panpsychist theories are along the lines that particles of God somehow end up in all things, but mine is that somehow intelligence evolved through changing matter, which would result in billions of intelligences, not one.... I am exploring, not preaching.-Yes, exploring. Please explore the issue I keep mentioning. The start of the universe and the start of life both require information, which then comes across as your term 'intelligence'. See the discussion about George's assertion we can have something from nothing.-> DAVID: But you push too far. Semi-autonomy is only as far as I will ever go [re an IM].
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> dhw:Why “ever”? Why not stick to not knowing the extent of its autonomy, which leaves open the possibility that it extends far beyond minor adaptations? Don't close your mind.-I'm not close-minded. But at the present time we do not know the extent of an IM's ability. Currently we are discussing it in the realm of supposition. If we find proof of total autonomy I will change my mind. But semi-autonomous fits my concept of theistic evolution. You see my mind works authoritatively. You are the fuzzy one, with options in every possible direction.