More Denton: Reply to Tony (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Tuesday, August 11, 2015, 18:42 (3392 days ago) @ dhw

DHW: In cases such as migration, nest-building, strange lifestyle, I agree with most of what you say, but you have begun with Chapter 2, and my focus is on Chapter 1: namely, how these patterns originated. 
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> You have summed up the problem very aptly: “To answer DHW's question about possibilities is likely impossible, due to my own ignorance. How many behaviors does a dog have? How many behaviors does a bird have?” Within the limits of what each organism can do and what the environment will allow each organism to do (a fish can't swim if there is no water), the possibilities would seem to be almost endless. -Actually, you bring up an important point here that I think adds more constraints than you might initially suspect. I think the environment adds fairly significant constraints that dramatically reduces the number of programs required, because all un-programmed for behaviors and un-programmed for environmental scenarios end in death. When we look at nature, this is in fact what we see. Fish out of water dies. Fish too deep dies. Fish too cold dies. Fish too hot dies. Water too salty fish dies. Water not salty enough fish dies. Fish eats wrong food fish dies. While there is some limited leeway for most things, the end result is that if the environment exceeds the pre-defined tolerances of the organism, the organism dies. I suspect that even extremophiles if removed from their extreme environments would die, because that is the environment they are programmed for. -All of this is to say that perhaps the easiest way to define this problem is to look at what is NOT possible before trying to look at what IS possible. Narrow the scope of the problem from the infinite of our imaginations to the finite of reality, cut the fat, and then re-examine. ->DHW: However, in David's scenario, all possibilities have been preprogrammed in the first cells, to be passed down through billions of years and organisms until each descendant organism somehow automatically turns on its own special programme (or God “steps in” to write a new programme for it). You are rather more cagey in your musings about how much is preprogrammed, and this can only mean that you are prepared to accept the possibility that (theistic version) God gave cells/cell communities the wherewithal to work out their own “behaviours” which, if successful, will then be handed down.-
Err, no. Nice try though. You try to give me the option of Darwinian Evolution or your Intelligent Cell theory as if those were the only two choices. Special creation, even in the limited prototype fashion that I view it, is still a possibility and still consistent with the evidence. Your hangups regarding it seem to be about why God would create something that would die out (extinction events)which is something that I have covered previously and in more depth in other conversations.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.