Different in degree or kind: animal minds (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, December 27, 2015, 13:49 (3043 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: It is hardly surprising that the birds learn by experience, but it's nice to hear that your God didn't actually preprogramme the first living cells with the complete nest.
DAVID: You neatly sidestepped my comment:
DAVID'S COMMENT: A long article worth reviewing. I agree with her thoughts about weaver birds in current times. My issue is with the original nest plans for development. Note the bold. The weavers don't present anything new. It is all a fixed process.The article gives no hint as to how the first nest was arranged for, God-given or by trial and error. I don't see trial and error, which is your approach.-I wrote: "Birds do not need to come up with new solutions if they already have solutions that work. And finally, how the heck do they think the birds came up with these “existing solutions” in the first place?" 
I thought this had covered your comment. You see the finished product, so why would you also have seen trial and error? (You're not that old, David!) Once the nest existed, there may have been modifications, but all initial ”problems” required solutions by the original builders. You say God implanted the first living cells with instructions (or gave the birds private tuition), because the nest was essential for the production or feeding of humans. I suggest the birds already had the intelligence (possibly God-given) to work it out for themselves.
 
dhw: I would have been shatteringly surprised if they had found that animal/bird/ insect/bacterial intelligence was on the same track as that of humans.
DAVID: Wow! You've just said humans are different in kind! -I have said all along that you should stop equating animal/bird/insect/bacterial intelligence with human intelligence. I would not expect a parrot to think like a human or a tiger or an ant or a bacterium. In that sense, they are ALL “different in kind”, which might be a definition of phyla. But they all use similar methods to achieve similar ends: e.g. perception, processing information, communication, decision-making - the purposes being to survive, to reproduce, to make optimum use of the environment, to improve.... However, you use the expression “different in kind” to buttress your argument that humans were God's purpose all along, in which case ALL extant phyla and their wonders and lifestyles must have been God's purpose all along, since they are all different in kind, all were unnecessary (as bacteria have survived), and all are here now. -dhw: Those are important questions, and I look forward to the answers. My guess, of course, is that the researchers will discover that intelligence does not depend on a spinal column and brain.
DAVID: All organisms need is intelligently prepared instructions which is placed in their genomes for interpretation.-I would say all organisms need is information both internal and external, plus the intelligence with which to interpret and use it.