Different in degree or kind: animal minds (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, January 12, 2016, 19:40 (3025 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I don't think any of us would disagree that the degree (“magnitude”) of our consciousness makes us vastly more conscious than an elephant and a sparrow. So what exactly is your point?
DAVID: The appearance of our amazing consciousness makes us special, something not expected in the stepwise advance of complexity in evolution. All other creatures follow patterns of shape and form (which I have mentioned before) as shown in college courses like comparative anatomy. In college I studied a frog, dog fish, and a cat anatomy to see the similarities. Brains also followed a pattern, but the jump from Chimps to us is like no other advance. Adler's point. We Are different in kind. Therefore here is a God guiding the process. -As far as patterns of form and shape are concerned, I would suggest there are greater differences in kind between an ant and an elephant than there are between a chimp and a human. But according to you, every innovation, lifestyle and wonder indicates that there is a God guiding the process, because all organisms are too dumb to work these out for themselves. Hence our discussion of the weaverbird's nest. So you don't need humans for your “therefore” anyway. You just have a problem figuring out how the rest fit in with humans being God's purpose.-DAVID: You've stated the point yourself: to get to humans everyone has to eat to survive. Evolution produced humans, with food supply providing part of the mechanism. Humans are related primarily to evolutionary processes; balance is a secondary issue.-To get to the duckbilled platypus everyone has to eat to survive. Evolution produced the duckbilled platypus. The duckbilled platypus is related primarily to evolutionary processes. The balance of nature is a secondary issue because according to you it exists so long as there is any organism alive, which makes it irrelevant as an explanation of anything.
 
DAVID: You keep trying to tie everything together according to your sense of logic, while judging God's. God could certainly have designed everything if He had the power to create the universe and guide evolution. I believe He did. Faith does not require an explanation of every jot and tittle of reality.-I am not questioning your God's logic or his potential powers; I am questioning your logic and your interpretation of his thinking, which entails a 3.8-billion-year computer programme for, or personal supervision of, every innovation, lifestyle or wonder, regardless of its relevance to humans, even though humans were his purpose. I am surprised that you should dismiss as “every jot and tittle” the burning question of how evolution works. Over and over again, with excellent human logic, you attack Darwin's concept of random mutations (I agree with you), but once your own hypothesis comes under attack, suddenly human logic goes out of the window.