Different in degree or kind: animal minds (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, January 13, 2016, 13:53 (3237 days ago) @ David Turell

Once more I'll telescope the arguments:-dhw: 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. You just have a problem figuring out how the rest fit in with humans being God's purpose.-DAVID: Phenotype differences are just different body form developments in the branches of the bush of life. All cells work about the same whether as single-celled organisms or multicellular. The chimp human difference is consciousness, and you know it. Again, if you have time read Nagel, Mind and Cosmos. He says we have not explained human consciousness as a result of evolution.-Nobody has explained consciousness at any level, and I trust nobody would claim that only humans have consciousness (which is not to be equated with self-awareness). No organism could survive without a degree of awareness of its environment. We agree, though, that human consciousness is vastly more developed than that of any other creature, but you always want to emphasize this in order to justify your belief that humans were God's purpose. Maybe they were, and there are logical reasons why they could be, but according to you God specially preprogrammed or personally designed every other natural wonder, and so I am left wondering why what you call “every jot and tittle” is so specially important for God when all he wanted was humans. Maybe - if he exists - God did dabble to give us our special brain. But I am proposing that no dabbling or preprogramming was necessary for every single form of life and lifestyle if we recognize that cell communities have their own (possibly God-given) inventive intelligence. Then you would not need to come up with all your non sequiturs (“not required”, “different in kind”, “balance of nature”) as you try to find - and ultimately say we shouldn't try to find - some logical reason for God's special personal interest in the weaverbird's nest and every other natural wonder and lifestyle, though they are clearly dispensable so long as he gets to us. It appears that you would rather jettison logic than acknowledge the mere possibility that cell communities (organisms) have the intelligence (possibly God-given) to conduct their own affairs.