More Denton: Reply to David (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, August 15, 2015, 08:47 (3388 days ago) @ dhw

“Reply to Tony” is turning into “Reply to David”, so I'm switching this post!-dhw (under “Reply to Tony”): Who needs preprogramming and dabbling? Either the particular “cellular intelligence” can work things out, or it can't. -DAVID: Are there gradations of your cellular intelligence depending upon the complexity of the organism. After all, some forms have brains and some do not.
-The sentence before the one you have quoted suggests that “the dinosaurs did not have the form/degree of “intelligence” (perhaps designed initially by God) that would enable them to cope with the chance-changed environment.” “Degree” = “gradation” and I chose “form” because it is obvious that for instance the intelligence of bacteria cannot function in the same way as that of a wolf. For all we know, the absence of a brain might be an evolutionary advantage, since the bacterial form of “intelligence” has enabled them to survive in so many different environments. -dhw: You acknowledge autonomous intelligence in wolves figuring out their own strategies, but ants apparently can't, and bacteria can't either. Their strategies have to be preprogrammed. All organisms can only respond in “limited ways” - a wolf can't suddenly decide to fly. But within the limitations of their own nature, even you can't tell if they are using a form of intelligence, and yet somehow you know the wolf does and the ant and the bacterium don't. (Oops...the bacterium doesn't! Careless of me!)-DAVID: I know the wolf has a useful degree of consciousness, and the ant may. I strongly doubt the bacterium, but then again, you like pan-psychism.-What does my interest in panpsychism have to do with it? I do not see myself as qualified to reject the findings of bacteriologists. I'm pleased to hear that you are now prepared to consider the possibility that ants know what they are doing. Who knows, eventually you may even come round to the idea that the weaverbird worked out how to design its own nest. And you might even acknowledge that God's programmes and/or direct intervention do not constitute “guidelines”, and the limitations imposed by the nature of each organism and its environment do not explain how organisms invent, so either organisms are automatons or they are not, and if they are not, then they must have some form of autonomous intelligence that enables them to work out their strategies, lifestyles, nests etc. for themselves.