More Denton: Reply to Tony (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, August 10, 2015, 14:04 (3393 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by dhw, Monday, August 10, 2015, 14:23

Dhw: As regards mainstream evolution requiring an origin that contains all possibilities, you are absolutely right, and this is why I am so sceptical of David's view that all possibilities were programmed into the first cells, and am interested in finding out how many possibilities you think were programmed into each of your prototypes (as opposed to their working things out for themselves). -DAVID: Tony's prototypes are equal to my pointing out patterns that are used over and over.-Darwin also pointed out patterns that are used over and over. It's an important factor in the theory of common descent. I'll now wait to hear how many “possibilities” Tony thinks were programmed into the prototypes as opposed to their working things out for themselves - and as opposed to your insistence that they were all preprogrammed into the very first cells. -Dhw: The alternative that I have proposed - without the conviction of belief - is that the first cells did not contain any programmes at all, but only the ability (i.e. a form of intelligence) to devise an open-ended sequence of programmes, which inevitably became more and more complex as they cooperated and learned to cope with different environments. A perfect analogy and also outcome to this process is provided by us humans. Theistic version: God provided cells/cell communities with the ability to create increasingly complex programmes only for “natural” organic purposes (the higgledy-piggledy history of evolution), and the culmination of this process so far - I agree that humans are special in this respect - is a cell community that has itself created increasingly complex programmes for all kinds of purposes. -DAVID: I think Tony will tell you that programs which create programs are highly complex, and unlikely to be within the layers of the DNA and its modifying components.-I suspect Tony will be able to give me his own comment, but this is getting too complicated. Last time you said the programme WAS the DNA and the overlying modification mechanisms. I suggested the programme had to be whatever directed the modification mechanisms to change the DNA (i.e. the inventive mechanism), which you have always said is within the DNA, but which you claim works automatically and has no autonomy. In my analogy, I am pointing out that my version of the inventive mechanism (cellular intelligence) has produced programmes resulting in another inventive mechanism (human intelligence) which can create programmes of its own. Most people would say our inventive mechanism is the brain, and my version of the cellular inventive mechanism is the equivalent of the cell's "brain".