More about how evolution works: look at the video (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, October 26, 2015, 12:11 (3314 days ago) @ BBella

DHW: The only intelligence we actually know of is our own...-BBELLA: I can't agree with that statement. To me, a bacteria, seed or cell, etc, all appears to interact intelligently (knows what to do) within it's place and surroundings. For the most part, be what it IS.-I'm delighted to agree with you. I have spent years and years trying to convince David that bacteria and cells may be (I daren't say “are”) intelligent, as claimed by such experts in the field as Margulis, McClintock, Buehler, Shapiro etc., but he insists that they are automatons. However, in deference to him and the many scientists who support his view, and despite his own inappropriate use of the word “know”, I cannot claim that this is knowledge. I chose my words very carefully!
 
BBELLA: It would seem to me that intelligence would need to have always been eternal just as energy and information has always been eternal....
Dhw: Again I don't know what you mean by eternal “information”. Information about what? About energy and matter transmuting themselves?-BBELLA: Information carried within energy. For example, scientist has data on most every known element. The only way a substance is known is its elemental make up. This recorded data is the information within the substance. -I understand, of course, that all substances consist of something, and whatever we find in them and whatever they do constitutes information. But no substance is eternal, and so perhaps what you are saying is that if energy and matter have always been present, then information of all sorts has always been present. That makes sense to me. Thank you. But in that case, there is as much information in disorder as in order, which leads us to a far more complex problem. This begins with your statement that “intelligence would need to have always been eternal.” David believes that first-cause energy is intelligent. By this he means that it is a singular conscious mind capable of deliberately designing a universe and life, but that doesn't seem to be your meaning. I'll have to select some of our exchanges to make the problem clear: 
 
Dhw: I agree that there is order on our planet and in its relationship to other elements of our solar system, but that certainly doesn't mean there has been “intelligent order” throughout eternity, or in the approx. 100,000,000,000 solar systems like ours in each of the approx. 100,000,000,000 galaxies. 
BBELLA: All that IS just IS, but all that IS is also constantly transforming matter into forms of order. If not, all that IS would just be a great space with no forms, only floating specks of matter going nowhere doing nothing . 
BBELLA: Every thing is something. For me, that means every thing is in some intelligent form. -I think we agree that our own solar system displays order in so far as without its very special composition, life could not exist. But what evidence is there that the rest of the universe has any such focal point? Apart from existing, moving around and eventually dying, what do you think these billions of solar systems actually “do” - by which I mean “achieve”? “Intelligent order” for me denotes some sort of purpose, and unless they too are full of life, their comings and goings do indeed suggest to me that they are “floating specks of matter going nowhere doing nothing”. I know you are a strong believer in “alien” forms of life, so perhaps this is what you are referring to, and you may be right - why should Earth be unique? - but 100,000,000,000 forms of life in our own galaxy? I'd like some evidence. For me, just “being” something does not denote order or intelligence. (See below)-Dhw: ...although it may well be that cause and effect reverberate throughout the universe, if I throw a stone into the water, can I really assume that the stone and the ripples are conscious at ANY level of what they are doing? 
BBELLA: No, I don't believe the stone and the water are conscious or aware of being what they are and what they are doing like humans are. But both are intelligent forms, being what they are - water and stone. They are not just dust floating in nothingness being nothing. So both are energetic matter, teaming with intelligent information of what they ARE, and connected to everything else at it's most basic energetic level. So at that level they ARE, they create vibration in every movement that reverberates throughout the universe, just as all things do.
-I think this exchange clarifies our different use of “intelligent”. For me it denotes one of two things: either the substance itself is sentient, conscious and capable of making decisions, or - as in the expression “intelligent design” - it is the product of a mind which has created it for a specific purpose. I do not think a wheel has intelligence of its own, but it is intelligently designed to serve the purpose of locomotion. Of course I agree with you that everything that IS is, contains information which we humans are able to analyse, and is part of the great chain of cause and effect (reverberating through the universe). An asteroid smashing into the Earth and destroying life IS and DOES and VIBRATES and REVERBERATES, but I can't associate it with intelligence or with intelligent order.