Convoluted human evolution: Tattersall's take (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, February 22, 2016, 13:39 (3198 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I cannot and do not believe in chance as the creator of the cell and its IM. Unfortunately, however, the invention of a supernatural magician - which is what your “God” appears to be - creates just as many problems for me as the chance discovery of the perfect enzyme. And so I repeat: That is the agnostic's dilemma. I cannot believe in either.-DAVID: But your IM is just an alternative for God, just as supernatural as God is. An IM which solves the enzyme problem has the same characteristics as God, in solving an immensely difficult problems. Again I ask you, why are we here? And your answer is, I can't accept any answer as reasonable. And my answer is, from our experience in our lives, the complexity requires mentation, and nothing else, i.e., thought and planning. Only chance or design. In my reading, no respected authority who is agnostic, has posed anything else, except to plead for a 'third way'. Denton and Nagel are examples. So are you. If we never find a third way, then what? For my part I don't see any evidence for one, not even a glimmer of one. 
As a result we are equal. I have my magical solution in your view. You want one.-I don't “want” anything other than the true explanation, which I know I shall never get unless there is an afterlife in which it is provided! But in answer to your first paragraph, the IM is absolutely NOT an alternative to God. The IM is an alternative to random mutations, your 3.8 billion-year-divine computer programme, and your divine dabbling. It is a hypothetical explanation of how evolution works, and it leaves open the question of its origin.
 
As always, I agree with you that the complexity of living forms requires mentation, but once again we must distinguish between the IM and the maker of the IM. As we have discussed ad nauseam, there are some distinguished biologists who inform us that cells are capable of mentation. That is the basis of my IM hypothesis to explain how evolution works. And so the question then has to be: what made the cell with its IM? Your answer is a single, universal mind (a “magical” God); the atheist answer is chance. I have offered a panpsychist variation, in which materials “magically” acquire sufficient awareness to work together. This may perhaps tie in with BBella's posts regarding Sheldrake's “morphogenic resonance”. Quite rightly, you anticipate my comment that I do not find any of these hypotheses reasonable, and you ask: ”If we never find a third way, then what?” Then I simply continue to sit on my picket fence till I fall six feet under. However, I am not at all uncomfortable sitting here. On the contrary, I find that the quest for some kind of truth is both enjoyable and highly educational, and for this I can only thank you and BBella and all those who have kept the discussions going for the last eight years!