horizontal gene transfer: the real IM? (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, December 20, 2014, 17:33 (3413 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: It's your conclusions that are so murky, though you state them with great authority!
DAVID: It is crystal-clear to me!-He who sees clearly sees not the whole picture. (New Taunton proverb)-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.
DAVID: 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. -Amazingly for someone who claims never to imagine what God might think, you tell us that he preprogrammed all the innovations and complex lifestyles 3.7 billion years ago for the purpose of creating humans (but you've now decided he didn't dabble), and you know that “God likes to hide. He tests. He cannot be tested.” (“Falsifiability”, 19 December at 00.53) But we mustn't ask ourselves what he might have done before he created this universe.-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.
DAVID: Just be careful as you spin round and round that your body doesn't end up in a circular anastomosis.-Luckily for me, I don't know what that means, and dictionary definitions don't help much, except that they all involve making connections. That is one of the eye-opening things about our forum: everybody looks at the world, and makes different connections.
 
Dhw: I am exploring, not preaching.
DAVID: 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.-I have explicitly stated many times, including in my post of yesterday, that I do not accept the something from nothing theory. (My thanks to you and Tony for your illuminating comments on the article George referred us to.) We have discussed umpteen times the fact that the universe and life require information, but you are only willing to explore one explanation of its origins, and when you are confronted with the sheer unimaginableness and totally unscientific nature of that explanation, your response is: “One must jump the chasm to faith.” -DAVID: But you push too far. Semi-autonomy is only as far as I will ever go [re an IM].
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.
DAVID: 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.-I suggested that you stick to not knowing the extent, and you reply that we do not know the extent! On the basis of that, you say that semi-autonomy is only as far as you will EVER go. This sounds pretty closed to me, though of course everyone will change their mind if they are confronted with “proof”. Even an atheist would become a theist if we found proof of God's existence.-DAVID: 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.-Yes, I see different options. My "fuzziness" is due to the fact that I do not have a fixed concept to which I can try to fit the evidence. I look at the evidence and try to find concepts that fit. Alas, so far none of them do.