Natures wonders: wasps and zombie spiders (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, August 10, 2015, 14:31 (3391 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Put your larvae on a spider, have him weave a cocoon for you and be the food source. The perfect total protection plan:-http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/08/06/these-parasitic-wa...-DAVID: Comment: How to explain this arrangement in Darwin terms? I can't.Dhw: “How to explain this arrangement in Turellian terms? God, whose purpose in designing the universe was to produce human beings, preprogrammed the first living cells so that their descendants would produce wasps and spiders a few billion years later, and one particular type of wasp would lay its eggs on the back of a spider etc.
Alternatively, God saw a wasp and a spider, and dabbled with the wasp to make it lay its eggs on the back of the spider etc.”
Can you honestly say you don't find this incredible? I'd love to know what Tony and BBella think of this too!-TONY: Of course I find it incredible! One could almost say that I find it virtually impossible to explain by chance precisely because it is so incredible. As far as the pre-programming goes, I think there may be some pre-programming for the parasitic action itself....in each case, the process is done differently, with different chemicals, behaviors, and results. So, same building block but different expression. -What's the same building block when the organisms, species, processes, chemicals, behaviours and results are all so different? “Some” preprogramming “may” have been done in the prototype wasp and the prototype spider. Aw shucks, come on, Tony, take the plunge. There is symbiosis between all kinds of organisms, animal and vegetable. Either it was all preprogrammed, God “stepped in”, or (theistic version) God gave these organisms the ability to work it out for themselves. Which of these three do you consider more likely?
 
BBELLA: I do not see the All That Is as a ("a" being the operative word) person like entity (as in he) that chooses to do things. I see All That Is (some call God) as creation itself, whatever that entails, and not separate from it. But, I also do believe in the possibility of god like beings (only god like by human standards) that has created us (in a technological sense), interfered and possibly even continues to dabble with earth and it's inhabitants to this day. For me, that explains a lot. I chose to put stock in this possibility because for me, it answers more questions than it creates.-DAVID: To me your concept of All That Is could include my universal consciousness.-The problem with godlike beings is that instead of asking how we got here, we find ourselves asking how they got here (or there). It just puts the question of origins back one step. David's concept of a universal consciousness entails a mind and a purpose. As I understand it, BBella's All That Is does not have “a” mind (“a” being the operative word). An alternative, if the All That Is is creation itself, might be my hypothesis of eternal energy constantly but unconsciously transforming itself into matter - which is a form of creation - and some matter “somehow” (as nebulous as the “somehow” by which David's version of eternal energy acquired or always had consciousness) evolving consciousness within itself. Consciousness would therefore exist not as a single universal unit but as countless individual units which themselves, through matter, create more units. Evolution results in different forms of consciousness, and these may be able to communicate not only with their own kind but also with other forms. -This ties in neatly with symbiotic relationships, though perhaps less straightforwardly with parasitic behaviour (our friends the wasp and the spider). However, I presume from your answer, BBella, that you are not keen on the idea that a universal consciousness preprogrammed the first living cells to pass on the whole wasp/spider process to their descendants a few thousand million years later. (David has ridiculed my intelligent wasp theory, and I am simply trying to get my own back. But of course you are not obliged to respond!)