Different in degree or kind: animal minds (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, January 06, 2016, 15:15 (3244 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You admitted that you didn't know how the weaverbird's nest, the parasitic wasp, the parasitic jellyfish and the hundreds of other examples provide “consumable energy requirement plant” for humans. How, then, can your anthropocentric concept of evolution seem logical to you? 
DAVID: Because you may not have recognized the food chain that leads up through the balance of nature to human consumption of foods. Remember Malthus and is worries? Inventiveness keeps the world's population fed.-No, I do not recognize a food chain leading through some nebulous “balance of nature” (see below) from the weaverbird's nest, the parasitic wasp, the parasitic jellyfish and “hundreds of other examples” to the human consumption of foods. And you have said that you don't either.
 
dhw: You keep arguing that humans were not required, and must therefore be the purpose of evolution. I keep pointing out that NOTHING beyond bacteria was “required”, since they have survived from the year dot.
DAVID: But, since you are using my original arguments, remember something had to drive evolution to complexity. Each illogical step up the complexity ladder drives that conclusion. What is more complex than the consciousness of humans. And I don't see further complexity beyond that. Humans are the endpoint.-And so we shift from the non-argument of “requirement”, which I hope we shall never hear again, back to the complexity argument, which we have also covered many times. The complexity of human consciousness is only one form of complexity, and it does not explain why so many non-human complexities (such as the dear old weaverbird's nest) have come and gone. (For “balance”, again see below). Nobody knows what “something” drives evolution, but you believe in divine preprogramming and/or dabbling, all for the sake of humans, and I suggest an autonomous inventive intelligence (possibly God-given) for a free-for-all.
You left out the following exchange, in which you once more advanced the “different in kind” non-argument: -DAVID: Adler considered all animals different by degree due to evolution, except humans who are different in kind.
Dhw: I believe that animals (including humans), birds, insects, fish etc. are “different in kind”, although they all descended from Darwin's few forms or one. I also believe that even allowing for our vastly superior intelligence, evolution has produced a far greater degree of “difference in kind” between elephants, sparrows, ants, gudgeon and my beloved duckbilled platypus than that between humans and chimpanzees. But if you and Adler think otherwise, you are entitled to your opinion.-dhw: As I keep saying, the balance of nature is constantly shifting. Before humans arrived, nature “messed up” the balance far more catastrophically than the Aussies. But you don't see those changes and mass extinctions as “messing up”.Those “messings up” of the balance were apparently all part of the “balance for everyone”, though everyone presumably didn't include the 99% of extinct species.

DAVID: Your statement is exactly on point. If evolution is a progress in complexity, then 99% were less complex, served their purpose and are gone. Balance is here to stay.-Your argument is all about humans being “here to stay”, not balance. Species are dying off by the dozens even now. There is no balance for them. According to you, 3.8 billion years of innovations, lifestyles and wonders extinct and extant have been preprogrammed just for us, and Nature is and always was “balanced” because here we are. “Balance for everyone” only means “for humans”. The Australians are apparently “messing it up”, but perhaps you have forgotten that the Australians are still here, so how can they be messing it up?-dhw: I would say that the complexity of life is already so apparent that belief in chance appearance requires a leap of faith just as great as that needed to believe in an eternal mind that encompasses the unfathomable vastness of the universe, which it created all for the sake of you, me, the weaverbird's nest and the duckbilled platypus.
DAVID: Still back to chance or design or the picket fence. Only design offers a valid conclusion. Of course, like Nagel you could be wishing for a third way.-No wishing. Simply continuing the search for a convincing explanation, and enjoying the company of those who are still searching or who think they have found the answer.