Balance of nature illustrated (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, February 08, 2015, 19:46 (3575 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: This is planning for a balanced food supply at all times, not for survivorship. 
dhw:Once again, a “balanced food supply” in whose interests?
DAVID: The survivors.-Put these statements together, and what have you got? God planned a balanced food supply in the interests of the survivors, but he didn't plan what was to survive. So how did he know for which creatures he should plan a balanced food supply? There simply has to be a more coherent explanation for the higgledy-piggledy bush!
 
DAVID: “Extremely unlikely” suggests against all the odds, don't you think?-Dhw: Yes, I do. And that applies to a know-all consciousness that's simply always been there as much as it does to a consciousness that evolved and to the miraculous creativity of chance.
DAVID: And where did that evolving consciousness come from? Pure energy? Energy interacting with matter to invent consciousness. And I'll skip chance. You've said you don't believe chance can do it. The appearance of consciousness certainly bothers Nagel. He wrote a whole book about his discomfort at the lack of recognition by science that nothing explains it.-It bothers all of us. If nothing explains consciousness, it doesn't really help much to say that consciousness was created by a consciousness which can't be explained! -Dhw: Bacteria look intelligent, but you start with the premise that they are automatons! Which comes first - the premise or the observation?
DAVID: From observation.
dhw: The salmon's lifestyle looks designed, and therefore your premise is that it is designed. The bacterium's behaviour looks intelligent, and therefore your premise is that it is an automaton. Hm.
DAVID: Did you notice you are comparing single-celled vs. multicellular? Vast difference. Try a different tack.-Irrelevant. Researchers have claimed that bacteria are intelligent. You claim that your premises are based on observation. You observe something that looks designed and conclude that therefore it is designed. You observe something else that looks intelligent (which you have admitted), and you conclude that it isn't intelligent. You have no way of actually knowing, but you impose your premises on what you observe.
 
DAVID: Kauffman does the same thinking [as you]. It avoids an agency such as God.

dhw: Why “avoids”? You make it sound as if God is the default position, and Kauffman is trying to wriggle out of it. Why should you automatically assume that a complicated bird's nest was not designed by the bird but by a vast mind that nobody knows anything about? 
DAVID: Because, as you know, I accept only either chance or design. One has to be the default.-Just as design by a human is design, design by a bird is design. Chance is not a factor here. We are talking about the inventive mechanism and not its source.